Discipline
Cost of AI and software
Knowing what already runs and what it actually costs, where it is better off running and what to stop paying for.
6 services in this discipline
This is yours if
The portfolio is past a hundred applications and some functions are covered more than once.
The renewal arrived with an increase, and what gets used of the product is a fraction.
There is pressure to bring inference in house, for security or for cost.
Use this today, without hiring anyone
Technology spend rationalization
The five spend lines that never reach the inventory. Look for them this week in your general ledger and your upcoming renewals: between the five, they usually explain the entire reduction target.
- Idle cloud. Environments left running that nobody uses and reserved capacity sized for a peak that no longer happens. It is the largest one and the least political.
- Licenses assigned and unused. Not the ones contracted: the ones with an assigned user and zero activity in ninety days. Ask the vendor for that figure in writing and compare it against what you contracted.
- Automatic renewals. List the dates for the next twelve months. Every one that passes without being negotiated is leverage lost to the calendar, not to a decision.
- Capability paid for twice. Make the list by function, not by vendor: storage, signature, ticketing, messaging. The duplicates show up when you sort by what something does and not by who sells it.
- AI tucked into the seat. At every renewal, ask for the breakdown: how much of the per user increase pays for AI features nobody approved. That part gets negotiated or switched off.
The most expensive mistake in this exercise gets avoided before it is made. If a build instead of buy decision comes out of this, demand the three year cost of operation before approving it. The cost of software was never the license, it was the maintenance nobody was doing.
It comes from Technology spend rationalization. Every service in this discipline brings its own.
The 6 services in this discipline
How much of your software and AI spend can you cut without breaking anything?
We were told to bring the budget down and every owner defends their application.
The real spend, not the contracted one: what capability you pay for twice, which renewal is leverage and what is better shut off, renegotiated, consolidated or built.
See the situationLicensed Software ReplacementIs that license you renew every year still worth what it costs?
We pay for a hundred features and use six.
A verdict on what you pay in licenses against the full cost of building it. If building wins, the code is yours.
See the situationWhere inference runsWhat does your AI actually cost, depending on where it runs?
Upstairs they want to bring it in-house and I am the one who will have to operate whatever they decide.
Your break-even point calculated with your volumes, and the failure mode you take on if you decide to self host.
See the situationSelf built software debtWho maintains the applications the business areas built on their own?
The areas built their applications with AI and the person who made them left in March.
What got built, who answers for each thing, what happens the day it fails and what it really costs to sustain it. With an owner and an operating manual.
See the situationMainframe succession programWhat happens when the two people who hold up your core system retire?
The person who knows retires in eighteen months and there is nobody to replace them.
The critical knowledge documented and the successors certified operating alone before the specialist leaves.
See the situationNearshore capability buildHow do you make your center deliver what the business case promised?
We opened the center a year ago and it still does not deliver what we were promised.
The operating model, the technical curriculum and the pipeline of team leads, until the center sustains its service level without us.
See the situationIn the network
Where each of its services comes in.
By the cycle
Vanguard“I want to move forward” · guideForge“I want to implement” · buildTaskforce“I want to stabilize” · sustainEach thread is a service. A click on a door, another discipline or a service opens its page.
Or see it by the cycle: Vanguard, Forge and Taskforce. Or by the question you arrive with, in the seven questions. And if you already know the name, there is the full list.
What is the decision you have in front of you this week?