When considering cloud cost management, FinOps teams are facing a growing challenge: they’re being asked to do more without additional resources. According to the latest State of FinOps report, while organizations are increasing their investment in cloud financial management, very few teams are seeing a corresponding boost in staffing or budget. Instead, expectations continue to rise, pushing professionals to optimize workloads, reduce waste, improve spend forecasting, and now – manage IT costs beyond the cloud.
This “efficiency paradox” is reshaping how teams operates. The question isn’t just how to cut cloud waste anymore, it’s how to scale FinOps practices without burning out teams or compromising financial governance.
FinOps: The Expanding Mandate
Just a few years ago, FinOps was primarily focused on public cloud cost management. But as cloud adoption has matured, so have expectations. The State of FinOps report highlights several key trends:
- Workload Optimization and Waste Reduction remain core responsibilities.
- Accurate Spend Forecasting is becoming more critical as cloud costs fluctuate.
- Governance and Policy at Scale is emerging as a must-have, not a nice-to-have.
- FinOps is expanding beyond public cloud to include SaaS, licensing, private cloud, and even data centers.
The problem? More responsibilities don’t necessarily come with more resources. FinOps teams are being asked to oversee larger scopes, implement more controls, and provide better forecasting- all while maintaining agility.
Why Hiring More People Isn’t Always the Answer
One obvious way to manage a growing workload is to hire more people. But that’s not always feasible. Cloud expertise is in high demand, and skilled professionals are hard to find. Even if hiring were an option, onboarding new talent takes time, time that most organizations don’t have when it comes to managing cloud spend effectively.
Instead, teams need to work smarter, not harder. That means:
- Automating manual tasks to free up time for higher-value activities.
- Using AI-driven insights to detect anomalies and optimize costs in real-time.
- Implementing governance frameworks that scale without creating bottlenecks.
Tools Over Headcount: The Key to Scaling FinOps
The State of FinOps report suggests two ways to tackle the growing workload:
- Hire more people.
- Leverage more efficient tools.
For many organizations, the second option is proving to be the most effective. Technology can fill the gap where human resources are stretched thin, whether it’s through AI-powered cost analysis, automated workload rightsizing, or proactive policy enforcement.
How Surveil Helps FinOps Teams Scale Efficiently
Surveil is built for the modern FinOps challenge: doing more with less. Our platform provides deep visibility into cloud spend while extending FinOps capabilities beyond the public cloud. Whether it’s optimizing workloads, enforcing governance at scale, or improving spend forecasting, Surveil delivers actionable insights without adding complexity.
Because Surveil is a lightweight, read-only solution, it integrates seamlessly into existing workflows, no heavy lifting, no security headaches, just real results. For FinOps teams stretched thin, it’s the difference between constantly firefighting cloud costs and proactively managing them.
The demand on FinOps isn’t slowing down. But with the right tools in place, teams don’t need to slow down either. Get in contact with Surveil today to see how we can help you.