Summary
Facing unmanaged cloud spend and limited operational bandwidth, German fashion-tech startup SAIZ partnered with Automat-it to optimize their AWS infrastructure without disrupting core product development. By integrating expert-led FinOps and DevOps solutions—including proactive daily monitoring and strategic savings programs—Automat-it successfully reduced SAIZ’s monthly AWS bill by 20% and instantly halted a hidden production bug that was bleeding $150 per day.
About SAIZ
SAIZ is a German startup, founded in 2022, and is where fashion meets data-driven precision. Powered by advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, it provides a comprehensive suite of tools designed to enhance sizing and fit across fashion brands.
They aim to make brands more efficient, profitable, and sustainable. By leveraging the world’s largest fashion database, SAIZ helps its customers produce garments that fit perfectly, reducing waste and returns.
The Challenge: Unmanaged Cloud Spend and Resource Constraints
Prior to partnering with Automat-it, SAIZ faced a classic operational hurdle for startups: maintaining cloud spend efficiency without distracting their core engineering team. Because their internal developers were entirely focused on product delivery, the startup lacked the specialized expertise and dedicated personnel required for effective financial operations (FinOps) management.
Specifically, they struggled with:
- Unaddressed Cloud Inefficiencies: A lack of ongoing architectural review meant that lingering, unused cloud resources were driving up recurring costs.
- Vulnerability to « Bill Creep »: Without proactive, daily oversight, unexpected cost spikes and runaway production bugs could quietly inflate their monthly AWS bill before being detected.
- Operational Bandwidth: The team needed a way to identify spending gaps and implement savings without introducing any technical burden or diverting engineers away from their primary development goals.
The Solution: Combining Expert-Led FinOps and DevOps
To bridge this operational gap, SAIZ engaged Automat-it to gain immediate access to our team of 150+ specialized FinOps analysts and DevOps experts. This strategic collaboration established a proactive, hands-off approach to cloud optimization for the customer, while Automat-it did the hands-on work. This allowed SAIZ to confidently delegate technical implementation to Automat-it while keeping their internal team fully focused on core product development.
As an AWS Premier Partner and Managed Services Provider, Automat-it was also able to provide SAIZ with access to AWS Savings Plans to further optimize cloud costs.
Key implementations and optimizations included:
- Proactive Daily Monitoring: An assigned FinOps Analyst began monitoring cloud spending daily to quickly identify unexpected spikes, collaborating directly with the Automat-it DevOps team to investigate and resolve « bill creep » in real-time.
- Strategic Savings Programs: Automat-it enrolled the startup in specialized, risk-free partnership offerings designed to maximize infrastructure savings without requiring upfront commitments or causing operational disruption.
- Ongoing Infrastructure Modernization: Through recurring collaborative reviews, the Automat-it team delivered meaningful, proactive cloud optimization insights, systematically eliminating lingering, unused resources to align the environment with AWS best practices.
The Results: Huge Cost Reductions
By partnering with Automat-it, SAIZ successfully transformed its cloud financial operations, achieving significant monthly savings and mitigating financial risk. All without slowing down its product development lifecycle.
Key Outcomes Included:
- 20% Monthly Cost Reduction: Achieved a combined 20% reduction in their overall AWS bill by securing 13% in risk-free monthly savings through strategic programs, plus an additional 7% through expert-led DevOps optimization.
- Immediate Cost Mitigation: During routine monitoring, Automat-it’s FinOps team quickly detected a sudden CloudWatch spike caused by a production bug. This rapid identification enabled both teams to take immediate action, containing an issue that was bleeding $150/day in wasted spend before the monthly bill could skyrocket.
- Elimination of Technical Debt: Successfully modernized the startup’s AWS infrastructure and removed unused legacy resources, ensuring long-term performance and cost efficiency.
Customer Testimonial
“At SAIZ GmbH, we were looking for a cloud partner that could operate with true ownership mentality,” explains Shahid Kochak, Head of IT and Founding Member at Saiz.
“Someone who valued every dollar of AWS spend as carefully as we do, while still supporting the pace and agility required in a fast-growing startup environment. Automat-it exceeded those expectations.”
Speaking on the real-world impact delivered, Kochak continues:
“Working closely with the Automat-it team, we successfully reduced our monthly AWS costs by 20%, all without impacting delivery speed or slowing a single sprint. » – Shahid Kochak, Head of IT and Founding Member at Saiz
“What stood out even more was their proactive FinOps approach. Their team identified and helped resolve a production issue that was unnecessarily costing us approximately $150 per day, within hours of it appearing. Without that level of visibility and responsiveness, the issue could easily have gone unnoticed until the monthly invoice arrived.”
Kochak also touched on the benefit of the collaboration between FinOps and DevOps:
“Beyond cost optimization, Automat-it played an important role in modernizing our infrastructure and reducing long standing technical debt that had accumulated over time. Their combination of technical depth, operational discipline, and startup mindset makes them an outstanding partner for any company building and scaling on AWS.”
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