Services
Technology cost optimisation consultants for New Zealand organisations
Know where the money's going. Know it's worth it. Stop it creeping back.
We review your Microsoft 365 and Azure costs, software licensing, backup and storage to identify wasted spending, reduce unnecessary costs and help you get better value from your tech budget.
Book a callCan you say what you're paying for, and is anyone using it?
Technology costs are spread across platforms, subscriptions, licences and vendors, and no one person is in charge of everything. Then a renewal lands, or the board asks where the money's going.
The bill nobody saw coming. An Azure invoice thousands of dollars higher than expected, with no warning and no easy way to work out why.
Nobody can see the whole picture. Departments buy what they need, finance and IT are working from different numbers, and costs that change every month are nothing like the fixed ones everyone's used to.
You're paying for things nobody uses. Former-user licences, idle cloud resources, spare backup capacity and four tools doing the same job.
Renewals run on history. Contracts get renewed for what you needed years ago, and without usage data it's very hard to challenge an invoice.
When your tech spend is under control
You can see what you're paying for, and every dollar has a reason.
- You can say what you're paying for, and why. The next budget conversation or renewal becomes a simple task, not a scramble.
- You stop paying for what nobody uses. Unused licences, former-user accounts and idle resources are removed or reassigned.
- Cloud costs stop being a surprise. Azure spend becomes forecastable, with reporting that flags a spike early.
- Nothing important breaks. Performance, resilience, security and compliance are weighed up before anything changes.
- Renewals are based on what you use now. Not what you needed three years ago.
- Every cost has an owner. Departments can see their share, so spending decisions sit with the people making them.
- Your budget goes where it matters. Money that was being wasted funds the priorities you've been putting off.
- The savings last. Regular reviews catch cost creep before it builds up again, and you can see the savings you've actually made.
Want to know where your money's going?
Technology Cost Optimisation | Client Case Study
The cloud bill kept going up. Nobody could explain why.
A New Zealand local government organisation was watching its cloud and backup costs climb month after month. Services had been added, subscriptions had grown and storage was accumulating. But nobody had a clear picture of what was driving the costs or who was responsible for them. The problem wasn't just the growing bill. It was not knowing what they were paying for, or whether they still needed it. We reviewed backup retention, improved subscription management, introduced resource tagging standards and identified unnecessary cloud resources and storage that could be cleaned up.
The difference? Lower monthly cloud and backup costs. Clearer ownership of subscriptions and resources. Better visibility into where the technology budget was going. More informed decisions about future cloud investment. They went from questioning every increase to understanding exactly where their cloud spending was going, and having the information to keep it under control. "The savings were great, but the real win was finally understanding where our cloud spend was going."
What our tech cost optimisation service includes
We agree on the exact scope with you, so you only pay for what you need. The scope usually follows five stages.
1. Discovery
We find out what you're really paying for and who's responsible for it.
- Conversations with the people in finance and IT.
- Invoices, agreements and billing exports.
- Licences and subscriptions.
- Your business-critical services.
- Cost ownership and allocation.
2. Analysis
We look at what's being used, what isn't, and why.
- Microsoft 365 licence use.
- Azure consumption.
- Idle and underused resources.
- Service tiers and sizing.
- Storage and backup.
- Former-user and dormant accounts.
- SQL environments.
- Duplicated tools.
- Contracts and renewals.
- Cost trends, where the data allows.
3. Findings and recommendations
You get a clear picture of where the savings are, ranked so you know what's quick and what takes longer.
- Immediate savings.
- Right-sizing opportunities.
- Licensing changes.
- Services to retire or consolidate.
- Governance improvements.
- Risks and dependencies.
- A prioritised roadmap.
- Indicative savings, where your billing data supports them.
4. Optional remediation
If you'd like us to make the changes, we can. If you'd rather your team does it, we'll hand over what they need.
- Licence reassignment or removal planning.
- Right-sizing cloud resources.
- Retention changes and storage archiving.
- Backup optimisation.
- Resource tagging and ownership.
- Cost alerts and reporting.
- Offboarding process improvements.
5. Ongoing review
Savings creep back unless somebody's watching.
- Monthly reporting.
- Quarterly business reviews.
- An annual licence review.
- Renewal preparation.
- Cost-anomaly review.
- Tracking of the savings you've actually made.
The goal is to make sure your technology spending delivers the right balance of cost, performance, security and business value.
Nothing gets changed or removed without your approval. Analysis and remediation are separate pieces of work, so you can choose what you need. We'll make sure the proposal clearly explains what's included before you commit.
Why organisations choose It's Us for tech cost optimisation
Advice that's on your side. Our recommendations come from what you actually use and need, not from what someone's trying to sell you.
Technical and commercial together. A finance-only review can recommend savings that break something. A technical-only review can improve a platform and miss that you're overpaying for it. We look at both.
Better value, not blanket cuts. We look at the bigger picture before recommending changes, balancing cost with performance, security, compliance and what your business needs to achieve. That means considering how critical each service is, its resilience, contract terms, data retention and your plans for growth. Sometimes capacity that looks unused is there for a very good reason.
Straight talk. You'll hear what's an immediate saving, what's longer-term and what isn't worth the effort.
The full picture. We connect licensing, identity, offboarding, storage and cloud design, so you find the cause as well as the symptom. A pile of former-user licences usually traces back to offboarding.
Ongoing, not a one-off spreadsheet. Regular reviews catch cost creep and show you the savings you've actually made.
People you'll actually meet. You'll deal with the same people from the first call to the last review, and they've worked with organisations across government, insurance, energy and finance.
Is tech cost optimisation the right fit for you?
It's probably a good fit if you:
- Have tech costs that keep rising and nobody can explain why.
- Have a Microsoft or vendor agreement coming up for renewal.
- Find Azure spend hard to forecast.
- Have restructured, grown quickly or finished a cloud migration Have former-user accounts and data piling up.
- Aren't sure who has which licence.
- See different numbers in finance and IT.
- Have backup or storage costs that keep growing.
- Need to show your executives the value you're getting.
- Want advice that's on your side.
It's probably not the right fit if you:
- Want the cheapest option whatever the risk.
- Can't share billing and usage data.
- Only need help negotiating legal contract terms.
- Need a formal financial audit.
- Expect guaranteed savings before anyone's looked at the data.
- Won't consider changing licences, services or the way things are done.
If that's you, we'll say so, and point you to someone who can help.
Three steps to getting your tech costs under control
Book a call.
Tell us what's going on, whether it's a renewal, a bill that shocked you or costs you can't explain. We'll tell you honestly whether we can help, and if we can, you'll get a clear proposal and price before anything starts.
We show you where the money's going.
We look at what you're using, what you're not and what's safe to change, then give you a clear picture and a plan. You decide what happens next.
Know what you're paying for, and that it's worth it.
Budgets make sense, renewals get easier, and your team can stop costs creeping back.
Technology cost optimisation questions we get asked
Why are our Microsoft 365 and Azure costs increasing?
Growth is often caused by unused licences, dormant accounts, oversized infrastructure, archive data sitting on expensive storage tiers, backup growth, or services that were never reviewed after implementation. We help identify what's driving the increase and whether it delivers value.
We already review our licences. Can there still be savings?
Usually, yes. Licensing is often only part of the picture. We've helped organisations find savings through backup consolidation, storage tier optimisation, removal of duplicate systems, right-sizing cloud services, retiring legacy platforms and improving offboarding processes.
We're spending a lot on backups. How do we know if we're paying for the right amount?
Many organisations accumulate years of backups, duplicate backup platforms, overly aggressive retention periods or archive data stored on premium infrastructure. We review your backup strategy, retention requirements, recovery objectives and storage costs to make sure you're paying for protection you actually need.
Could our cloud infrastructure be overprovisioned?
Yes. We regularly find virtual machines, databases and cloud services sized for peak demand or historical requirements that no longer exist. We also find underprovisioned services causing performance issues. Optimisation is about aligning cost, performance and business requirements, not simply making things smaller.
Why are our storage costs growing so quickly?
Storage growth is often driven by backup retention, document versions, archive data, audit logs and content that nobody has reviewed for years. We help organisations understand what's consuming storage and whether it's sitting in the most appropriate storage tier.
Can reducing costs create risk?
It shouldn't. Before recommending changes, we assess security, compliance, resilience, recovery requirements and business impact. Cost reduction should never come at the expense of business continuity.
How do we stop costs creeping back?
We focus on ownership, governance and regular reviews so that savings remain sustainable rather than becoming a one-off exercise. The goal is to understand why the cost appeared in the first place, not just remove it temporarily.
What kinds of savings opportunities do you typically find?
Common examples include unused Microsoft 365 licences, dormant accounts, oversized Azure resources, duplicate backup platforms, archive data stored on premium disks, storage retention issues, redundant systems and overlapping vendor products.