A 40% Cost-Reduction Roadmap for Hill Dickinson LLP
A leading UK law firm streamlined its Azure governance and gained a roadmap to more than 40% cost reduction through a focused three-week diagnostic.
Company Overview
Hill Dickinson LLP is a leading commercial law firm employing more than 1,000 people across the UK, Europe and Asia. It completed its migration to Microsoft Azure in 2023/24 and built an in-house team of IT, PMO and DevOps professionals to manage cloud costs at a high level.
The move gave the firm visibility into its spend, but it had not yet put formal governance structures in place or built the technical capabilities needed for effective FinOps and cost optimisation.
Problem Statement
A recent, well-run migration still leaves a gap: you can see the spend, but seeing is not the same as governing it. Hill Dickinson needed a clear, prioritised way to turn visibility into action without overwhelming a team that was already busy.
Outcome Delivered
A focused three-week diagnostic produced a 12-month roadmap to more than 40% cost reduction and eight clear KPIs, giving the firm the structure and prioritisation to drive FinOps maturity with confidence.
Executive Overview
The roadmap outlined savings of more than 40% over twelve months by combining technical and commercial measures, and the delivery of eight carefully chosen KPIs gave leadership a simplified, actionable view of performance.
The firm was pleased with the clarity and prioritisation, and the engagement gave its team the structure and focus to drive FinOps maturity with confidence.
Our Approach
Over a three-week diagnostic we identified inefficiencies across compute and storage, including orphaned resources that could be shut down immediately and low-utilisation resources that could be rightsized for quick savings. Tagging coverage was relatively strong, but gaps in tagging quality were undermining cost allocation.
We set out clear recommendations and a 12-month roadmap that deliberately tackled governance, tagging and KPIs first, before progressing into more advanced techniques such as reservations, which means committing to a level of usage in advance in exchange for a lower rate.
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 EnquiryRecent migration, no governance yet
The firm completed its Azure migration in 2023/24 but had not yet established formal governance.
Visibility without control
It could see its spend, but lacked the structures to actively manage and reduce it.
Missing FinOps capability
The in-house team did not yet have the technical FinOps capabilities effective optimisation requires.
Orphaned resources running
Orphaned resources were still running and could be shut down straight away.
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.
Focused three-week diagnostic
A three-week diagnostic gave a complete, prioritised picture of where cost was being lost across the estate.
Immediate orphaned-resource shutdown
Orphaned resources, still running but attached to nothing, were identified for immediate shutdown.
Rightsizing low-utilisation resources
Low-utilisation resources were flagged for rightsizing to capture savings quickly.
Eight focused KPIs
Eight carefully chosen KPIs gave leadership a simplified, actionable view of performance.
A sequenced 12-month roadmap
A 12-month roadmap sequenced the work, tackling governance, tagging and KPIs before anything advanced.
A path to advanced techniques
Reservations and other advanced techniques were positioned for later, once the foundations were solid.