Cloud ROI Sprint

The CFO is asking hard questions about the cloud bill

Get a quantified savings roadmap and a cost accountability model your CFO can read — in 4 weeks.

Schedule a 20-Minute Call ← All Sprints
$30M Annual cloud run rate reduction at Best Buy
$35M Capex avoided
10x ROI on $9M governance investment
65% Per-app run rate reduction
The Problem

Cloud bills keep growing despite optimization efforts

Most enterprise cloud cost programs focus on the wrong things: tagging audits, reserved instance spreadsheets, rightsizing reports. These produce incremental savings and leave the structural problem untouched.

What's actually happening

  • Engineering teams don't know which of their services costs what
  • No connection between cloud spend and the business value it delivers
  • Cost optimization is treated as an infrastructure problem, not an engineering culture problem
  • The CFO and board see a growing line item with no clear owner
  • Every quarter the conversation gets harder to have

What doesn't work

  • Tagging audits (incremental, not structural)
  • Reserved instance spreadsheets (doesn't change behavior)
  • Rightsizing reports from cloud vendors (conflict of interest)
  • Strategy decks from consultants who've never owned the cloud bill
  • One-time optimization without accountability infrastructure
The Sprint Deliverable

A quantified savings roadmap with an accountability model that makes it stick

The sprint ends with something you can take to the CFO and a model your engineering teams can operate — not a slide deck that sits on a shelf.

What you receive at the end of week 4

  • Full cloud spend audit by service, team, and product — mapped to business value
  • Quantified savings opportunity by category (rightsizing, waste elimination, architecture, contract)
  • Cost showback model: each engineering team sees their spend vs. business value in real time
  • Board-level ROI narrative: how to present the cloud program to leadership and finance
  • 90-day implementation roadmap with clear ownership and sequenced priorities
  • Quick wins: savings actionable in 30 days with no architectural change

Engagement Terms

4-week fixed scope  ·  No retainer required

Scoped to your environment and team size. Delivered in 4 weeks with structured weekly checkpoints. The engagement ends with a clear deliverable — not an open-ended consulting relationship. Most clients use the roadmap to build the internal business case for the larger program, or to validate whether one is necessary at all.

How It Works

Four weeks. Structured. No surprises.

01

Week 1 — Audit & Inventory

Access to billing data, tagging architecture, and a 1-hour session with the engineering and finance leads who own the cloud bill today.

02

Week 2 — Diagnosis

Full spend breakdown by service, team, and product. Waste and inefficiency identified. Quick wins surfaced. Accountability gaps mapped.

03

Week 3 — Roadmap Build

Savings roadmap with quantified opportunity by initiative. Showback model architecture. Board-level ROI narrative drafted.

04

Week 4 — Readout & Handoff

Executive readout with the CTO and CFO. Roadmap finalized. Ownership assigned. 30-day quick win plan handed to the team.

Why This Works

Proven at Fortune 50 scale

$30M

Annual cloud run rate reduction at Best Buy

I led the cloud platform org at Best Buy that reduced annual cloud run rate by $30M and avoided $35M in capital expenditure — a 10x return on the $9M governance investment. The lever that mattered most was not a tool or a contract negotiation. It was building a cost accountability model that made every dollar of cloud spend visible to the team that controlled it. When engineering teams could see their cost vs. business value side by side, behavior changed. Fast.

What moved the needle

  • Cost showback by product — visibility changed behavior without mandates
  • Engineering accountability for the cloud bill, not just infrastructure operations
  • Executive reporting that connected cloud spend to business value in real time
  • Sequenced quick wins that built momentum for the larger program

What I've seen in mid-market orgs

  • 20–30% of enterprise cloud spend is typically recoverable
  • The real problem is accountability, not tooling or contract renegotiation
  • Quick wins in 30 days are almost always available — they're just not visible yet
  • The board conversation gets easier when you have a model, not just a number

If the CFO is asking, the clock is already running

A 20-minute call will tell us both whether there's a fit. No commitment required.

Schedule a 20-Minute Call