Recognize that there are many opportunities to drive down cost in the cloud. The forms of cloud resources differ and it pays to evaluate purpose and fit periodically. Updated resource models could also benefit cost structure. For example, if the supplier updates IaaS instance models it could be that a newer smaller model provides enough resources to handle your workload. A low effort way to cost savings. Along the same lines is detecting sub-optimal use of cloud resources.

The importance from a governance standpoint is ensuring the proper use of IT budget and alignment between IT and the Business. The activities we undertake here are successful if we eliminate bureaucracy or at least create a smooth path through bureaucratic processes. And not unimportant; prevent unauthorized IT purchases.

The show back (or charge back) reports should be used in the transition phase as a moment of (interdisciplinary) reflection. Are expectations  being met? If not, what are we going to do about it? Use it as a governance tool to show alignment (or misalignment) between business goals and IT spend and a way to optimize cost.

The CCoE will advise on the purchasing and contracting processes for cloud. Furthermore our cloud heroes from the CCoE have the task of making sure the platform can deliver the (meta)data. Not only that but also present the data in useful dashboards and/or reports. This of course includes recommendations on resource optimizations to benefit cost savings.