Achieve Australia
Cutting Azure spend by 40%
- NDIS & Disability
- 40% off the Azure bill
A TechRam cost review of Achieve Australia’s Azure estate found environments nobody had turned off, storage tiers nobody had reviewed, and reserved capacity bought for a retired workload. Right-sizing and shutdown schedules cut the monthly bill by 40%, recovering more than $40,000 a year.
40%
off the Azure bill
$40,000+
in recovered annual Azure overspend
The organisation
Achieve Australia, the same 1,700-employee provider, a year into the relationship and looking at cloud spend. One of the larger NDIS providers in the country, and a registered Specialist Disability Accommodation provider.
Where it started
Yashmin Lata joined as senior IT leader and inside the first month had identified gaps across governance, infrastructure, policies and procedures. The most visible one was the Azure bill: a substantial monthly payment to an external vendor for an environment nobody had reviewed.
A cost review found environments nobody had turned off, storage tiers nobody had reviewed, and reserved capacity bought for a workload that had since been retired.
What we built
- A full read of the Azure estate against actual usage rather than against the original design
- Right-sizing and tier changes on the workloads that were oversized
- Shutdown schedules on the non-production environments
- A monthly cost report that goes to the people who can act on it
Where it went
40% off the Azure bill, and $40,000+ a year recovered.
The cost recovery led to a kickoff workshop with the C-suite and the marketing and communications team. From there the engagement expanded into the operational work that followed, and ongoing Azure governance now runs as a monthly cycle rather than an annual surprise.
The pattern held: each successful build created internal advocates for the next one.
I knew we're not going to get robbed.
Common questions
01. What did the cost review actually find?
Environments nobody had turned off, storage tiers nobody had reviewed, and reserved capacity bought for a workload that had since been retired. The bill was a substantial monthly payment for an environment nobody had read.
02. How was the 40% taken out?
A full read of the estate against actual usage rather than against the original design, then right-sizing and tier changes on the workloads that were oversized and shutdown schedules on the non-production environments.
03. What keeps it from drifting back?
A monthly cost report that goes to the people who can act on it. Azure governance now runs as a monthly cycle rather than as an annual surprise.
04. Did this need a large commitment up front?
No. It was a focused cleanup of the Azure environment and it was the first engagement of the relationship. The operational work came after it, not before.
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