IT Financial Management and FinOps: Better Together

In many organizations, IT Financial Management (ITFM) is still treated like a static process—an annual budget exercise followed by monthly forecasts. That might have worked when IT spending was predictable. But with the rise of dynamic cloud services and usage-based pricing, that approach is quickly reaching its limits. 

Enter FinOps. Teams everywhere are adopting it to get a grip on cloud spend. But here’s the thing: while FinOps brings visibility into cloud costs, it’s not enough. To manage the total cost of IT - and deliver real business value - you need a broader strategy. That’s where ITFM comes in.  

Let’s explore how ITFM and FinOps complement each other and why you shouldn’t have to choose between them. 

The FinOps Factor: A Good First Step

• Track cloud costs in detail 
•  Use tags to allocate spend to services or cost centers 
• Suggest cost-saving actions 

But they focus only on cloud—and that’s the problem. Your IT spend doesn’t stop at the cloud. To make informed decisions, you need visibility across all IT services, platforms, and contracts - not just one slice. 

What Companies Are Doing Now 

Our recent survey with Research in Action shows the current situation. We asked 1,000 IT and business leaders across North America and Europe how they integrate cloud costs into their ITFM: 38% don't have a solution yet. They either don’t do this at all, do it manually or start to think about doing it (see figure 1). 

  Figure 1 

That sounds like 62% already have solved this problem. Not really, as you can see in our next question (see figure 2). 78% reported that cloud cost integration is still a challenge they must solve.

Figure 2:  

The takeaway? Companies recognize that managing cloud and overall IT spend together is the future - and they’re making moves to get there. 

What the Analysts Say 

Gartner’s latest Market Guide for IT Financial Management Tools confirms what we’re seeing:

• The ITFM market grew by 16.7% in 2023 year and is projected to grow another 11% annually through 2028
• FinOps adoption is fueling interest in broader IT expense management
• Spreadsheets no longer cut it once you hit multiple data sources, frequent reporting, and growing cloud complexity

CIOs aren’t just chasing savings. They’re being asked:    

• Why does IT cost so much?
• What value are we getting?
• How do we align spend with business priorities?

That’s exactly what ITFM tools are built to answer. 

USU’s Strength in the Market 

According to the latest Vendor Selection Matrix, USU ranks among the top ITFM and TBM providers in DACH. In fact, we scored: 

    #1 for customer satisfaction 
    #1 for price-performance ratio 
    # A near-perfect recommendation rate from users 

Our ITFM solution supports everything from budgeting and forecasting to cloud cost integration, chargebacks, and financial analytics—all with strong local support and flexibility that fits your needs. 

Better Together: FinOps + ITFM 

Think of FinOps as the cloud cost specialist and ITFM as the big-picture strategist. When you bring them together:

• You get complete visibility into IT spend
• You align costs with business value
• You empower your teams to make smarter, faster decisions 

Instead of juggling tools and spreadsheets, you gain one connected view, on-prem, cloud, and beyond. 

What’s Next? 

If you're already doing FinOps, you're on the right path. But don’t stop there. To truly optimize your IT investments, you need a complete financial management approach. 

Let’s connect and explore how we can help you bring FinOps and ITFM together—so you can see more, do more, and spend smarter. 

About Gartner

Gartner, Market Guide for IT Financial Management Tools, Robert Naegle, April 28, 2025. 
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