Top 3 things to know about getting Started with Cloud Financial Management

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Do you want to transform your business with cost transparency, control, forecasting, and optimization, but don’t know where to start? You’re not alone.

Here are our answers to the top 3 customer questions and the top 3 key takeaways to help you start transforming your business by managing and optimizing your spend.

Top 3 Customer Questions

1. How do I know where to start with my CFM journey?

We like to share 6 steps customers can take to begin their journey:

a. CFM ownership. Identify an owner (individual or team) responsible for driving cloud financial management activities.
b. Organizational partnership. Create a Finance and Technology partnership, and establish a regular communication cadence to create and maintain alignment.
c. Enable cost allocation. Implement an account structure and tagging strategy to enable allocation of cost to lines of business, products, or teams.
d. Cost visibility. Report cloud costs to Technology teams in order to raise cost awareness and establish efficiency KPIs for finance and business stakeholders.
e. Cost optimization. Leverage services and tools to identify and implement cost savings opportunities.
f. Cost forecasting and monitoring. Improve cost predictability and monitor spend variances.

Try to identify where you are in the process and pick up from there. Alternatively, if you find you’re well into the latter steps without fully implementing any of the previous ones, we encourage you to cycle back and ensure those items are in place. Doing so will set a firm foundation to building a long-term and successful CFM practice.

For more details, check out the latest Getting Started with Cloud Financial Management presentation on AWS CFM Talks.

2. What are the core elements I need in place for a successful CFM practice?

Organizations with mature CFM practices have a process for evaluating cost and usage information regularly with varying levels in the organization. They have implemented policies or programs to allow cost aware decisions by development teams, finance, and business leaders. We recommend starting early and taking small steps to begin leveraging the CFM lever to move your business world.

3. What resources do I have available to help implement some of these core items?

AWS Cost Management console provides services for understanding your cost and usage with AWS Cost Explorer, managing budgets and finding cost anomalies, as well as providing recommendations to optimize your AWS cost and usage. The Well-Architected Cost Optimization labs can help you get started with step-by-step directions.

Top 3 Takeaways

1. Establishing a CFM practice is a marathon, not a sprint.
2. A successful CFM practice requires working with multiple teams across multiple tools.
3. Every organization implements their CFM practice in a different way to meet their unique challenges.

Conclusion

Whether you were born in the cloud or just starting your cloud migration journey, AWS has a set of solutions to help you transform your business with cost transparency, control, forecasting, and optimization. Get started today.