Note: We have started a new monthly series where we record interviews focused on a particular topic throughout the month. We then release the individual interviews, along with a mash-up of clips from multiple guests. January’s topic was Cost Cutting vs Cost Efficiency. Platform Engineering: Is DevOps Dead? is on our February calendar. If you want to participate in the series too, please get in touch.

Guest: Roi Ravhon (LinkedIn)
Company: Finout (Twitter)

The cloud can be very expensive if it is poorly managed. As companies start to optimize their cloud costs and focus on efficiency at scale, it is harder than it seems. A shift in perception and proper tools are needed.

In this episode of TFiR: T3M, Swapnil Bhartiya sits down with Roi Ravhon, Co-Founder and CEO at Finout, to talk about the cost-cutting measures companies are currently taking and how Finout is perfectly positioned to help them.

Key highlights of this video interview:

• Cutting down 10-20% of cloud costs is great, but it’s probably not going to save the business. What is going to save the business is becoming efficient at scale.
• Companies are now drawing their path to profitability, i.e., they are focusing on unit economics, measuring their profitability margins, and making sure that engineers can run as fast as they can and innovate.
• Finout ensures that everyone in the company is getting their unit economics aligned and that they understand the profitability margins. They can then start to grow their finance, operations, and perception, without having to wait for the industry to react.
• When companies are cost cutting, they usually embrace FinOps and start to operate under the FinOps framework. They optimize, they turn off all unused resources, rightsize wherever they can, adapt to new technologies, and utilize the cloud as they should. Then, they start to really measure their business, identify their unit economics, and align cloud costs with business value. Eventually, they need to change the perception of cloud spend into cloud investment.
• Finout can help take the cloud cost, cloud usage, and the actual business and make sure that everyone understands why they’re spending that money and how it’s actually contributing (or not) to their business goals.
• Layoffs in one company are opportunities for another. Smaller companies now have the ability to hire amazing talent. Companies who adapt fast and have a product that is in the core business of other organizations will not only survive this economy, but will actually get on the other side significantly stronger.
• With cost-cutting, it is not enough to just buy a tool or optimize costs or just fire people. Companies have to decide the business value behind every process they do. There has to be a shift in the way they view cloud costs. If their engineers understood this meaning, then they will start being responsible for what they’re doing. If companies can get this shift in motion, then getting the proper tools will help them get even better.

This summary was written by Camille Gregory.