Is Your Cloud Bleeding Money? Here’s How to Stop the Bleed

We have witnessed how the cloud has evolved from an innovative buzzword to the backbone of the modern economy. Yet, the growth of cloud adoption is far from slowing down. This year alone, spending on public clouds will reach US$679 billion, with projections for 2027 reaching a staggering US$1 trillion.

Gartner predicts that by 2028, the cloud will be as important to business operations as electricity. But there’s a catch: as the cloud becomes indispensable, “cloud inflation” has emerged as a major concern. In fact, it is reported that cloud decision-makers are struggling with an escalating dilemma of keeping costs under control. A McKinsey study reveals that organisations are typically overspending on the cloud by an average of 23%, with 61% of cloud practitioners acknowledging they’re falling short in managing usage and costs effectively. And the rise of AI is no small part of the problem, driving up cloud spend by 30%.

Common Pitfalls That Can Drain Your Budget

Despite careful planning, several factors can cause cloud costs to escalate rapidly. Here are a few of them:

• Lack of visibility – Without detailed insights into what workloads are running, who is using what, organisations struggle to identify cost drivers. The absence of tagging, partitioning, or tracking mechanisms often leads to unaccounted spending and inefficiencies.
• Idle and unused resources – Test environments left running, forgotten temporary instances, or overprovisioned resources that aren’t actively used can quietly drain budgets. These “zombie” resources often go unnoticed until the bill arrives.
• Overprovisioning and inefficient scaling – Allocating more resources than needed—whether for peak demand “just in case” or as a result of static provisioning—can quickly inflate costs. Failure to implement autoscaling or to optimise resource sizes exacerbates this problem.
• Shadow IT and decentralised spending – Teams bypassing centralised IT procurement to purchase cloud services can lead to duplicate resources, lack of cost governance, and compliance risks. This uncoordinated approach often results in spiralling expenses.
• Unanticipated usage growth – Unexpectedly successful projects or spikes in demand can blow past budgets. While the business value might justify the usage, the lack of forecasting and adaptable budgeting processes can cause financial strain.
• Suboptimal design and architecture – Poorly optimised cloud solutions, such as inefficient architectures, bad design decisions, or resource-heavy code, can lead to higher-than-necessary consumption of cloud services. Addressing these issues often requires significant reengineering efforts.

Proactive Strategies for Smarter Spending

Do some of these challenges sound familiar? If so, it’s time to take a closer look at your cloud strategy. Rising cloud costs don’t have to be an inevitable side effect of innovation. Organisations can fight back with a blend of proactive governance and tactical implementation.

Organisations need to move from reactive firefighting to proactive cost governance. Setting up real-time cost monitoring tools ensures that you are not surprised by unforeseen expenses. It’s not just about tracking expenses, but controlling them before they get out of hand. This is where actionable insights, such as alerts tied to spend thresholds, prove invaluable.

At the same time, take a close look at your existing cloud architecture. Are redundant SaaS tools eating into your budget? Is every resource deployed delivering its value? By rightsizing your infrastructure and eliminating duplicates, you will not only save money but also lay the groundwork for more flexible and secure operations. When you combine these optimisation efforts with cost avoidance strategies, such as long-term discounts or volume pricing agreements, you can avoid “cloud-flation” while staying one step ahead of your competitors.

Achieve Cloud Cost Mastery with FinOps

With its extensive experience guiding organisations toward cloud success both regionally and globally, Orange Business advocates for a FinOps approach. At its core, FinOps transforms cloud financial management into a collaborative effort where engineering, technology and finance teams work hand-in-hand to make informed, data-driven decisions. The result? Cloud spending is no longer an unpredictable expense but a strategic lever for driving business value.

Nevertheless, the challenge with FinOps lies in its complexity, especially as businesses embrace multi-cloud environments. Although there are native cloud provider tools that can help monitor spending, organisations should consider third-party solutions like Cloud Advisor that offer a more comprehensive view and advanced features for multi-cloud management.

Orange Cloud Advisor is designed to bring visibility and intelligence to help you continuously control and optimise costs, maintain security and stay compliant across your cloud environment. Its features include:

• Over 600 best practice checks across cost management, security, compliance, utilisation, performance, and availability.
• Cost optimisation: Minimise waste and maximise cloud investments.
• Multi-cloud compatibility: Seamlessly manage resources across multiple platforms.
• Utilisation and inventory: Continuous resource monitoring, optimisation, and assessment.
• Security monitoring: Full compliance with over 30 standards, including CIS, NIST 800-53, PCI, and HIPAA.
• Automation: Remediation and policy enforcement with a convenient “fix now” feature.

Keep in mind that managing cloud spend requires a change in mindset. It’s not about spending less, it’s about ensuring that the right resources are allocated where they will bring the most value to the business and its growth. Don’t wait—take action now to ensure future savings.

To learn more about how Orange Business can help you optimise your cloud spend, click here.