Why FinOps Is No Longer Optional

The FinOps Advantage: Survive and Thrive in the AI Era

In the age of AI, cloud sprawl, and ever-scaling infrastructure, financial discipline is no longer a “nice-to-have”, it’s survival.

🚨 81% of enterprises say cloud costs are a top concern for 2025

📉 40% of cloud spend goes to waste or underutilised resources

🔁 AI workloads can increase compute spend by up to 5x, without delivering 5x value

The promise of AI is real, but so is the burn rate.

FinOps brings financial accountability to cloud operations, empowering engineering and finance to speak the same language and make informed decisions, together.

What Happens Without FinOps?

– A Fortune 500 enterprise ran an LLM pilot that exceeded its cloud budget by $6.2M in 90 days; because no one had guardrails.

– An AI product launch failed to reach profitability after 18 months due to runaway Kubernetes scaling.

– One enterprise had 17 separate teams buying GPUs independently, with no visibility or consolidation.

These aren’t edge cases. This is the norm, unless you operate with a FinOps mindset.

Read the Perceptive testimonial

Why Lighthouse Chose IBM Apptio & Turbonomic

We’ve evaluated dozens of platforms, and for our enterprise clients, IBM’s FinOps stack stood out.

IBM Apptio: Precision Cost Visibility

Apptio provides deep insights into IT spend, allowing CFOs, FinOps teams, and engineering to:

  • Map cloud spend directly to business units, features, or teams

  • Run “what if” scenarios for new AI workload deployments

  • Benchmark costs against industry peers and optimize cloud mix

Why it matters: Without visibility, there’s no control. Apptio lets your finance team predict and your tech teams innovate, without stepping on each other.

IBM Turbonomic: Real-Time Optimisation with AI

Turbonomic goes beyond dashboards; it acts. Automatically.

  • Continuously optimises workloads for performance and cost

  • Dynamically adjusts resources to match real-time demand

  • Prevents overprovisioning—without undercutting SLAs

Why it matters: AI doesn’t rest. Neither should your optimisation engine. Turbonomic ensures your cloud runs lean and smart, 24/7.