How collaboration and the right technology delivered exceptional results for a major healthcare organization

In today's cloud-first world, managing and optimizing cloud spend has become a critical challenge for organizations of all sizes. When done right, however, the results can be transformative. We recently spoke with Andrea Casiraghi from Protiviti , a global consulting firm serving more than 80% of the Fortune 100, about achieving a successful client outcome. This case demonstrates the power of combining expert guidance with leading-edge technology. 

Protiviti and IBM collaborated to help a major healthcare company located in Italy, Switzerland, Albania, Luxembourg and UK, to manage cloud costs by implementing, IBM Apptio Cloudability, the market-leading tool for cloud cost management. It eliminated cloud cost uncertainty and contributed to a 40% reduction in spending in just one year, demonstrating what’s possible when the right partner meets the right solution. 

Here's how it all came together:

The healthcare organization operates on both national and international levels, which typically means complex cloud architectures and significant spending. What specific challenges did they have regarding optimizing their cloud financial management?  

The main challenge we faced was organizational. Before hiring Protiviti, the client didn't have proven practices for managing cloud spending and consumption. Responsibility for cloud costs rested solely with the IT department, which, despite its strong technological expertise, wasn't structured to properly manage cloud finances. Finally, the Finance function wasn't involved. All of this occurred within a complex landscape of mergers and acquisitions in various countries.

The project’s complexity required bringing multiple areas of expertise together: FinOps specialists, IBM Apptio Cloudability experts, Azure professionals, client technical teams, and Apptio consultants. How did you orchestrate this multi-stakeholder collaboration to ensure each team's expertise was used effectively? 

Within the client's recently formed cloud center of excellence, we created a FinOps team that, with our support, orchestrated a cross-functional team comprising IT, Finance, and business. We provided FinOps training to the entire cross-functional team and specific Cloudability training to the FinOps team members. CIO and CFO were the sponsors of the technology and change management initiative

Given that this healthcare organization needed to manage costs across multiple cloud providers and Kubernetes environments, what made Apptio Cloudability the optimal choice for their multi-cloud strategy?

Cloudability supports the Customer with:

1. True Multi-Cloud Visibility: Cloudability supports all major cloud providers — the customer primarily uses Azure - by ingesting, normalizing, and structuring billing and usage data. This unified view allows organizations to Identify inefficiencies and waste and Allocate costs accurately to teams, projects, or business units
2. Advanced Cost Allocation & Business Mapping: It enables 100% allocation of cloud costs through features like Business Mapping: Aligns cloud spend with business units, products, or cost centers and Tagging & Governance: Ensures consistent metadata for accurate reporting, Container Cost Allocation: Breaks down Kubernetes and containerized workloads 
3. Forecasting & Budgeting: It offers robust forecasting tools that leverage historical data and usage trends to: Predict future spend, Set and track budgets, Benchmark against industry peers

A 40% reduction in cloud spending within 12 months is impressive, especially when industry benchmarks for Apptio Cloudability implementations typically see 20-30% reductions in the first year. What specific factors and methodologies contributed to this client exceeding typical outcomes by such a significant margin? 

A significant contribution was made by adopting a correct and thorough tagging strategy and taxonomy, which had previously been poorly implemented. This allowed for the correct attribution of costs and consumption for different workloads to the various cost centers (cost transparency), including support costs and shared resource costs. Cloudability's reporting capabilities gave the client's various owners visibility into inefficiencies and the ability to make rapid, data-driven decisions.

Beyond the cost savings, this project established what you describe as "a common language" enabling IT, finance and business teams to make data-driven decisions in real time. How did you navigate the organizational changes required to achieve this level of cross-functional collaboration? 

It was crucial to combine training on Cloudability with training on the FinOps framework for the various company functions. Cloudability is entirely mapped to the framework. This approach allowed us to provide people with different backgrounds and goals with a common ground, provided by Cloudability itself.

The client has expressed that they've "gained control over cloud spending and achieved significant cost optimizations," and you mention this approach is now being replicated in other contexts. How are you using the learnings and methodology to create a scalable model for other organizations? 

Cloud cost transparency and proper allocation to different cost centers using an appropriate tagging taxonomy are the starting points of every FinOps initiative. Cloudability, with its reporting, cloud value optimization, and automation capabilities, represents the essential operational support for complete, real-time visibility into cloud spending and resource consumption, even in multicloud or hybrid cloud scenarios.

For organizations looking at their own cloud cost challenges and considering whether they need both the right strategic partner and the right technology platform, what would you say are the essential success factors they should evaluate when embarking on a similar transformation journey?

When organizations begin their cloud cost optimization and FinOps transformation journey, choosing the right strategic partner and technology platform is crucial. The essential success factors they should evaluate are:

1. Strategic Partner Capabilities:  FinOps expertise: Proven track record in cloud financial management. Change management support: Helps drive cultural and operational shifts across teams. Training & enablement: Empowers internal teams to adopt FinOps practices. Tagging Strategy & Governance expertise Vendor Intimancy
2.  Core Tool Capabilities:  Visibility & Transparency: Granular cost breakdown, Real-time data, Multicloud support Reporting & Business Alignment: Custom dashboards, Chargeback/showback models, Forecasting & budgeting with Predictive analytics to support planning. Intelligent Optimization: Rightsizing recommendations, Idle resource detection, Commitment management.

Ready to take control of cloud costs? IBM Apptio Cloudability helps you monitor, manage, and optimize spend across AWS, Azure, GCP, and more. Discover how its visibility, automation, and governance features can transform your cloud strategy: https://ibm.biz/Bdbeq3

Hear more about our collaboration with Protiviti: