Avoid unknown risks in the era of cloud, SaaS, and AI with 7 best practices

As digital transformation accelerates, data center management has undergone a significant evolution. The advent of cloud computing, the proliferation of software as a service (SaaS), and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) have transformed the data center landscape.

These advancements offer unprecedented opportunities for scalability, agility, and innovation. You may be wondering: Is there really any downside? What issues might arise?

Well, a lot.

Business Wire’s 2024 State of the Cloud Study for IT and Finance Leaders states that generative AI and AI workloads are driving significant cloud spend increases, and 72% of IT and finance leaders say the spend is becoming unmanageable.

With the adoption of AI, SaaS, and cloud, the complexity of managing software assets and financial operations has grown exponentially. Traditional data center risks have evolved into dynamic, distributed, and often invisible (or unknown) threats and challenges that must be carefully navigated. Effectively managing consumption across scalable environments with unlimited resources is critical; otherwise, costs can spiral out of control compared to the traditional data center model — typically a “brick-and-mortar” facility with fixed infrastructure, managed in-house.

Let’s explore these risks through the dual lens of software asset management (SAM) and financial operations (FinOps), offering a modern strategy to mitigate exposure, optimize spend, and ensure governance.

What is unknown risk?

Unknown risk refers to hidden, unanticipated, or poorly understood exposures that arise from the dynamic and decentralized nature of modern IT environments — especially those involving AI, SaaS, and cloud. Today, unknown risk is less about physical infrastructure and more about unaccounted digital assets. This includes:

• Untracked cloud resources spun up outside of procurement or IT governance.

• AI workloads consuming compute at scale without cost or compliance oversight. AI and generative AI workloads are growing rapidly, but most organizations lack visibility into how these workloads consume cloud resources. Without proper governance, AI can silently drive excessive spend and compliance risk.

• SaaS applications adopted by business units without IT or security involvement.

• AI workloads and SaaS platforms now operating across hybrid environments with decentralized procurement and usage. SAM teams face challenges in entitlement tracking, while FinOps teams struggle with forecasting and cost attribution.

• License sprawl and underutilized subscriptions that inflate spend and risk audits. Excessive consumption and shelfware/duplicate technology cause wasted, unrecoverable spend that chips away at investment benefits and impacts spending on future strategic initiatives.

• Rapidly evolving licensing models — especially for AI and cloud services. Without continuous monitoring and rule updates, organizations fall out of compliance, miss optimization opportunities, and are exposed to unplanned costs.

These risks are often invisible without a mature SAM and FinOps practice in place. Unfortunately, these risks are not captured by traditional asset or financial tracking systems.

Why SAM and FinOps are critical

SAM provides the structure to inventory, track, and optimize software usage across hybrid environments. It ensures compliance, reduces audit exposure, and aligns licensing with actual usage.

FinOps brings financial accountability to cloud operations. It enables teams to monitor spend, forecast usage, and optimize cloud investments in real time.

Both represent coordinated, continuous efforts to realize value from ever-evolving investments and expenses, and provide a disciplined consumption management approach. Together, they form the foundation for visibility, control, and strategic decision-making in modern IT environments.

Risk mitigation strategies

In today’s hybrid IT environments, risk is no longer confined to compliance violations or audit exposure — it’s embedded in every decision about cloud consumption, SaaS licensing, and AI workload deployment.

Organizations now manage multiple scopes of technology spend, each with its own complex risk profile. SAM and FinOps offer complementary perspectives to identify, quantify, and mitigate these risks. Here are seven helpful, best-practice strategies to consider:

1. Establish unified SAM and FinOps governance.
   Break down silos between SAM, FinOps, and ITAM to ensure consistent policy enforcement and visibility. Launch a governance-first architecture, embedding policy, process, and automation across software, SaaS, AI, and cloud lifecycles. Train teams on FinOps and SAM best practices to build internal capabilities.
2. Implement an industry-leading and unified SAM and FinOps tool.
   This is a strategic enabler to significantly enhance governance, optimization, visibility, and risk mitigation across software, SaaS, AI, and cloud environments. Leverage AI-driven tools to detect anomalies, recommend rightsizing, and enforce policy compliance across environments. Implement an automation-first approach to reduce manual effort, improve agility, and increase quality.
3. Establish a unified asset inventory.
   Create a single source of truth for all software — on-premises, cloud, and SaaS. Integrate to track ephemeral resources and AI services. Leveraging trustworthy cross-domain intelligence can improve visibility and decision-making for renewals, migrations, and optimization efforts.
4. Leverage FinOps principles.
   FinOps best practices like mandatory tagging, chargeback/showback models, and budget alerts help identify orphaned resources and shadow IT. Implement standardized tagging frameworks and governance to ensure every dollar spent is mapped correctly to a project or department.
5. Monitor software, SaaS, and AI usage and license consumption.
   Be sure to implement continuous compliance monitoring and optimization. Leverage your automation-first approach for entitlement management, redundant software identification, and AI token and SaaS usage optimization. Proactively manage licensing rights across all hosting and cloud platforms, such as bring your own license (BYOL), to avoid overpaying or introducing risk. Additionally, review real-time dashboards daily, supported by quarterly business reviews.
6. Align IT, finance, and procurement.
   Create cross-functional teams that bring together SAM, FinOps, and procurement to review spend, forecast needs (a big challenge in the AI era), and negotiate contracts based on real usage data. Align SAM and FinOps key performance indicators (KPIs) across finance, IT, and procurement teams to drive cross-functional collaboration. Hold regular cadence meetings with leaders who use SAM and FinOps services to drive collaboration and make costs more predictable.
7. Make continuous improvement.
   Follow the “crawl, walk, run” maturity model used by the FinOps Foundation to progress your organization from basic capability to an advanced level. Review progress quarterly and set new goals as improvements are obtained. You can leverage a service provider to speed your journey and fill your skill gaps.

Organizations that take these steps and integrate SAM and FinOps practices gain:

• Proactive governance versus reactive firefighting risk management.
• Full visibility into where workloads run and how they’re licensed.
• Cost control through proactive optimization and accountability.
• Audit readiness with accurate, real-time compliance data.
• Operational agility by eliminating waste and reallocating resources efficiently.

Unfold strategic value, not hidden risks

In an era defined by cloud agility, AI innovation, and SaaS proliferation, the traditional boundaries of the data center have all but disappeared. What remains is unknown risk and a growing need for visibility, control, and accountability across every layer of the digital ecosystem.

By implementing a unified SAM and FinOps platform, your organization gains a powerful foundation for governing software, optimizing spend, and mitigating risk — not just in legacy environments, but across the full spectrum of modern IT. This approach transforms asset management and financial operations from reactive functions into strategic enablers, maximizing ROI. With a comprehensive services portfolio and seasoned experts, SHI can help you take control of your software, cloud, and AI investments. Get dedicated support in FinOps and cloud spend optimization services, as well as ITAM services specializing in SAM, SaaS spend optimization and governance.

Ultimately, a unified strategy turns the gamble of unknown risk into known, managed, and mitigated risk — a win for all.

NEXT STEPS

If you’re interested in learning more or could benefit from expert consultation, schedule a complimentary one-hour session with an SHI SAM and FinOps expert today.