Uncovering 43% in Annual Azure Savings for a Top 10 UK Law Firm
A top UK legal firm found 43% of its annual cloud spend in recoverable savings, drawn from cost avoidance, more efficient use of resources and better rates, all without touching the way its systems were designed.
Company Overview
The client is a top 10 UK legal firm running on Microsoft Azure, with an in-house IT team of around 300 people supported by third-party partners. Between 2022 and 2024 it had moved roughly 80% of its systems into the cloud, and by the end of that programme it was spending more than £13 million a year on Azure.
The migration had been delivered at pace and a full re-architecture was already planned for 2025 once the move was complete, so in the meantime the firm needed a way to keep spending under control without pausing the work or redesigning anything.
Problem Statement
Moving fast into the cloud is sensible, but spend that grows without a structured approach to governance tends to drift, and small inefficiencies compound quietly until nobody can see where the money is actually going. That was the position here: real cost, real growth, and very little visibility into which resources were earning their keep and who was accountable for them.
Outcome Delivered
In just three weeks, and after analysing around 27,000 Azure resources in under 48 hours, the firm had a clear path to 43% of its annual cloud spend in savings, with 16% available immediately at no design risk and a further 27% within three months, all underpinned by leadership KPI dashboards and a maturity assessment that keep the gains in place.
Executive Overview
Within three weeks the engagement had identified 43% of annual spend in potential savings. Of that, 16% could be realised immediately by clearing orphaned resources (services still being paid for but no longer attached to anything) and tuning virtual machines, with no design changes at all, and a further 27% was achievable within three months through rightsizing and re-tiering (matching the size and storage class of a resource to what the workload genuinely needs).
Just as importantly, the KPI dashboards and maturity assessment gave leadership a way to track progress and a long-term strategy for governance, so the savings would hold rather than slip back.
Our Approach
We began with a Cloud Cost Allocation Audit, which is simply the work of establishing what is running, what each resource is for, and who owns it, because you cannot manage spend you cannot attribute. Using Optimus we analysed around 27,000 Azure resources in under 48 hours, which gave us the detail to guide every recommendation that followed.
From there we built a tailored KPI dashboard so leadership could see the key cost drivers at a glance, ran a FinOps maturity assessment to map the capabilities needed for long-term governance, and published a tagging strategy for the engineering team so that cost allocation stays accurate as the estate keeps changing.
Challenges
Challenges Faced
Every engagement starts with a clear-eyed view of what was actually getting in the way, because you cannot fix what you cannot see. Here we set out the real constraints the client was working within, the costs and risks they were carrying, and the gaps that needed closing before any meaningful progress could be made.
Let's Transform Your Enterprise Today
Send an EnquirySpend growing without governance
More than £13 million a year was flowing into Azure with no structured approach to managing it, so cost was rising faster than control.
Migration delivered at pace
Around 80% of systems had moved to the cloud in two years, and governance had not yet caught up with the speed of the migration.
No visibility into waste
Inefficiencies had built up quietly over time, and without attribution nobody could see where the waste actually sat.
A stretched delivery team
An IT team of roughly 300, supported by partners, was managing a large estate without the tooling to keep costs in check day to day.
Deployed solutions
What We Did
A look at how we approached the work, from the first discovery sessions through to the changes we put in place, and the thinking behind each decision along the way. The aim is always the same, to deliver something measurable that the client owns and can build on, rather than a one-off fix that fades once we leave.
Cloud Cost Allocation Audit
We started by mapping what was running, what each resource was for, and who was accountable, because spend can only be controlled once it can be attributed.
Optimus-powered analysis
Optimus analysed around 27,000 Azure resources in under 48 hours, turning a sprawling estate into clear, prioritised insight.
Immediate, no-redesign wins
16% of annual spend was recoverable straight away by removing orphaned resources and optimising virtual machines, with no change to how systems were designed.
Rightsizing and re-tiering
A further 27% was reachable within three months by rightsizing oversized resources and moving data to more appropriate, lower-cost storage tiers.
Leadership KPI dashboards
A tailored dashboard gave leadership a plain view of the main cost drivers and a way to track progress over time.
Maturity assessment and tagging
A FinOps maturity assessment and a published tagging strategy gave the engineering team the structure to keep allocation accurate and savings durable.