How Culture, Governance, and Visibility Drive Business Value ft. Tamara Lajara, SoftwareOne | Ep #57

Why do so many FinOps programs struggle to prove business value?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sit down with Tamara Lajara, FinOps Principal Consultant at SoftwareOne, to break down what real FinOps value looks like and why culture, governance, and visibility matter just as much as savings.

Drawing from more than a decade of consulting experience across industries, cloud maturity levels, and organizational cultures, Tamara shares why FinOps succeeds when people, process, and technology are aligned and fails when even one of those elements is ignored.

This conversation dives deep into the realities FinOps practitioners face: getting engineering buy-in, navigating organizational politics, avoiding costly long-term cloud commitments, and proving value when ROI isn’t immediate or obvious.

Here’s what we talked about:

Why FinOps fails when it’s framed only as cost optimization
How to think about FinOps value across four key pillars: optimization, governance, culture, and visibility
How to get engineering buy-in when savings aren’t immediate or obvious
The risks of “lift, shift, and commit” cloud strategies
Why tagging, governance, and accountability unlock future savings
What AI will (and won’t) replace in FinOps
How cloud-native teams think differently about FinOps than legacy organizations

🎧 Subscribe for more FinOps leadership conversations → https://www.finopsinaction.com/

Quote of the Show:

“It’s about finding the right motivation for each team, not assuming everyone thinks the same way.” - Tamara Lajara

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaralajara/
Website: https://www.softwareone.com/en-us

Ways to Tune In:

Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f25a9d18-c12f-4ee4-93f5-2aa96e509b55
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finops-in-action/id1790497808
iHeart Radio: https://iheart.com/podcast/268443483/
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/finops-in-action-5958339
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IpjMc3qxDXZAjic5Zq21t
Substack: https://finopsinaction.substack.com/
Transistor: finopsinaction.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PointFiveCloudCostEfficiency

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