FinOps, governance to define cloud’s next phase: Writer’s Sachin Salian

After a decade or more of rapid cloud migration, Indian enterprises are entering a more complex phase—one defined by governance, cost discipline and sovereign data strategies. In an interview, Sachin Salian, Senior Vice President and Global Business Head – Cloud and Data Services at Mumbai-headquartered Writer Information (tech and digital arm of Writer Corporation, a diversified multinational group), outlines how enterprises are rethinking cloud in a multi-cloud world. Edited excerpts.

Are Indian enterprises moving from cloud adoption to cost control and governance?

Yes, very clearly. Cloud adoption in India has matured beyond migration. Over the last decade, sectors such as BFSI, healthcare, digital commerce and government have moved core workloads to the cloud, making it foundational to enterprise IT. Now, the focus has shifted to optimisation. 
As cloud environments scale, enterprises are finding that the real challenge is not adoption but operational control—ensuring governance, cost visibility and efficient workload management. 
With India’s cloud market expected to maintain strong double-digit growth and cross $20–25 billion in enterprise spending over the next few years, managing cloud efficiently is becoming critical to business outcomes.

Are enterprises facing a governance gap as cloud spending rises?

There is a clear gap emerging. Cloud has shifted IT spending from predictable capital expenditure to a consumption-based model. While this offers flexibility, it also introduces complexity. Most organisations now identify cloud cost management as a major challenge, with a meaningful portion of spend often wasted due to underutilised resources.
This becomes more difficult in hybrid and multi-cloud environments, where enterprises operate across multiple providers with different pricing models and tools. The result is fragmented visibility and a ‘disconnect’ between financial oversight and technology operations. To address this, many organisations are adopting FinOps frameworks, which bring finance and engineering teams together to create shared accountability for cloud usage and spending.

What defines the “post-migration” phase for Indian enterprises?

The post-migration phase is about extracting value from cloud investments. Most large enterprises in India have already migrated critical workloads, and the cloud is now deeply embedded in business strategy.
Hybrid and multi-cloud architectures are becoming standard, particularly in regulated sectors where data residency and compliance are key. At the same time, cloud is evolving into the backbone for analytics, artificial intelligence and digital platforms.
With India’s rapid growth in data-intensive sectors such as fintech and e-commerce, enterprises are under pressure to ensure performance, governance and cost efficiency at scale. This requires a stronger focus on workload optimisation and monitoring.

How has Writer Information positioned its Cloud and Data Services practice around this shift? 

Our strategy is built around lifecycle management rather than just migration. Enterprises are increasingly looking for partners who can manage cloud environments end-to-end—covering security, compliance, performance and cost optimisation.
Our Intelics Cloud architecture is designed for hybrid and multi-cloud environments, supporting virtual private cloud setups, integrated security frameworks, and multiple workload formats including containers and bare metal.
A key trend we are seeing is the rise of sovereign cloud. As regulatory frameworks evolve, organisations want greater control over data residency and governance while still benefiting from cloud scalability.
India is a significant opportunity here, given the rapid expansion of digital businesses and public digital infrastructure, which is driving demand for governed and compliant cloud platforms.

CFOs often talk about “cloud bill shock.” What are the most common hidden costs enterprises encounter after moving workloads to the cloud?

It typically stems from accumulated inefficiencies. Overprovisioned compute resources are a major factor—enterprises often allocate excess capacity during migration, which remains underutilised.
Data transfer costs, especially in multi-cloud environments, can also escalate quickly. Storage inefficiencies add to the problem when inactive data is not moved to lower-cost tiers. Industry estimates suggest that 20–30% of cloud spending is wasted. Addressing this requires continuous monitoring, automation and structured FinOps practices. Tools such as cloud cost optimisation platforms help by providing visibility into usage patterns and recommending workload adjustments to improve efficiency.

How complex has cloud management become for CIOs?

Significantly more complex. Enterprises now distribute workloads across multiple cloud platforms to improve resilience and flexibility, but this creates fragmented environments. Each provider has its own pricing, security and management systems, making it difficult to maintain a unified view of operations. Regulatory requirements further complicate the challenge, particularly in sectors such as financial services and government. As a result, CIOs are increasingly relying on centralised management platforms, automation and policy-driven governance models to maintain control.

Looking ahead, what will define the next phase of cloud maturity in India?

The next phase will be shaped by three converging trends: financial governance, automation and intelligent infrastructure.
FinOps will become central as enterprises seek tighter control over cloud spending. At the same time, AI-driven systems will play a larger role in optimising infrastructure by analysing usage patterns and automating resource allocation. Sovereign and compliance-focused cloud environments will also become more important as data governance requirements evolve.
Together, these shifts will move cloud from a scalable infrastructure layer to one that is intelligent, governed and economically optimised—marking the next stage of cloud maturity in India.