In previous articles, we have seen what the FinOps approach is and how it can be used in conjunction with Microsoft 365. In this article, I propose to illustrate how the FinOps approach can be combined with Microsoft 365, using 3 concrete examples.
Case 1: unallocated and unused licenses
This is the simplest subject when it comes to licenses, yet one that is all too often neglected by companies. For example, in year N, I have 300 Business Standard licenses, because at the time of commitment I have 300 users. Business life is made up of fluctuations in headcount, sometimes up, sometimes down. And it's not anecdotal to challenge the stock of licenses at each renewal to optimize it as much as possible.
Let's do a simple calculation: let's imagine that I have 15 more Business Standard licenses than the assigned licenses. That's :
15 x €11.70 x 12 months = €2106 over one year.
NB: Added to this, and I often see this, are user accounts that remain active even several months after the person has left. That's a net loss.
I'm reminding you of this because it's not obvious. The company buys a stock of licenses, not an allocation. Here, our company has purchased 300 Business Standard licenses. Period. The consequence is that the licenses of employees who have left can be reused during the course of their employment for other users.
Case 2: Business Standard license and Office pack
Let's move on to a scenario that's a little more difficult to analyze. Let's go back to the previous example, with our Business Standard licenses, which the company has made available to its employees. This is probably our best-seller, and has the advantage of being simple to operate (which is not the case with the 610 different subscriptions). The license includes :
- A set of online services (Outlook, Sharepoint, OneDrive, Teams, Planner, etc.) corresponding to the full range of services included in the Business Basic license.
- 5 Office pack installations per user.
So it's easy to extrapolate the difference between the 2 licenses, Business Basic and Business Standard. Simply measure the use (or installation) of the Office pack for Business Standard accounts.
Here again, the savings are not insignificant. Let's imagine that of the 285 Business Standard users (excluding the 15 unassigned licenses), 20 have not installed their Office pack. This happens quite often. For example, in ESNs with engineers using almost exclusively client hardware. Or with manual workers who log on to Microsoft 365 once a week or even once a month to check emails.
20 x (€11.70-€5.60) x 12 months = €1,464.
Case 3: Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Teams meeting summaries
Another case linked to generative AI, which is on everyone's lips at the moment. The emblematic use case on Microsoft 365 is the automatic summarization of Teams meetings. And indeed, it's a use that brings enormous value. Except that you can do it with 2 different licenses:
- Microsoft Teams Premium
- Copilot for Microsoft 365
So if your users' only use case with generative AI is Teams meeting summaries (plus possibly Copilot Chat without access to Microsoft 365 data) then Teams Premium is a better option. For 3 times less.
Still the same arithmetic, let's say for 15 users concerned :
15 x (€28.10 - €9.40) x 12 = €3366
In the opposite direction, measuring what's happening on your tenant can help identify champions on generative AI and allocate Copilot licenses to them that aren't already allocated.
Bonus: shared mailboxes
A little bonus before concluding, because I see it so often. There are often technical, non-nominative accounts that consume licenses. When they could just as easily be distribution lists or shared mailboxes.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the FinOps approach to Microsoft 365 can be very complex, but in most cases it generates huge savings (20% of the license budget on average with our customers). In our case, our company with 300 users comes to an annual saving of €6936, looking only at these very simple cases. For a more exhaustive view, we've equipped this approach for Microsoft 365 with 365Metrics, which lets you analyze your tenant free of charge.
If you're not convinced, we'd like to invite you to our webinar on the subject on December 11, 2025.
