How To Drive Value Without Relying on Cost Savings Alone ft. Rohit Mishra, Avaloq | Ep #55

Why can’t FinOps teams rely on cost savings alone?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sit down with Rohit Mishra, Head of Cloud FinOps at Avaloq, to challenge the idea that FinOps is only about cost optimization. Drawing from over a decade of experience in cloud infrastructure and capacity management, Rohit explains why cost savings are just the starting point, and how mature FinOps teams drive long-term value by shifting left into architecture, design, and decision-making.

Rohit shares lessons from his early FinOps journey, including what he got wrong when trying to optimize everything alone, and why collaboration across infrastructure, application, finance, and architecture teams is critical to success. He breaks down how speaking the right “language” to each team builds trust, unlocks execution, and accelerates impact.

He also explores how FinOps teams justify their value when cost savings plateau, covering topics like cost allocation, tagging governance, forecasting, and capacity planning. Finally, Rohit offers practical advice for FinOps practitioners at every stage, including why early wins matter, how to earn executive buy-in, and where FinOps as a discipline is still underdeveloped.

Here’s what we talked about:

• Why cost optimization is only one piece of Cloud FinOps
• What “shifting left” really means and how it prevents cloud waste
• How FinOps teams collaborate with architects, engineers, and finance
• How to justify FinOps value beyond direct cost savings
• Why early wins and low-hanging fruit are critical for management buy-in
• Where FinOps is heading as cloud environments grow more complex

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Quote of the Show:

• “ Shifting left is going to be a very important turning point in how FinOps is perceived amongst different teams and how FinOps is actually done.” - Rohit Mishra

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohit-mishra-6aa1bb14b/
• Website: https://www.avaloq.com/

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