6 | | NOVEMBER 2025In the rapidly evolving enterprise cloud landscape of 2025, organisations are converging on three intertwined priorities: controlling ballooning cloud spend, outsourcing operational complexity via managed services, and harnessing data as a strategic asset. At the centre of this dynamic is the nextgeneration Cloud Cost Optimization Platform -- intelligent, automated, multicloud aware -- enabling firms to negotiate the twin demands of agility and costdiscipline. According to recent research, many organisations still waste 30­50 percent of cloud spend on idle or overprovisioned capacity, making optimisation not a luxury but a necessity.Enter the domain of Microsoft Managed Services -- these services make complex cloud footprints more manageable by shifting infrastructure, application and security management to specialists. For many enterprises, the promise is clear: reduced operational load, fewer surprises, and lower cost. As one review puts it, managed services help "identify costeffective strategies such as rightsizing resources, leveraging reserved instances, and autoscaling to ensure you only pay for what you need." Marrying both these forces is the modern Data Intelligence Platform -- notably exemplified by Microsoft Fabric (part of the broader Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform). This platform enables organisations to unify data from across sources, apply AIdriven analytics, govern securely and scale costefficiently.What binds them together is a virtuous cycle: by optimising cloud cost you liberate budget; by leveraging managed services you reduce operational noise; by applying data intelligence you convert savings into strategic insight. However, the challenge remains: many firms treat these as separate silos. Instead, the 2025 winner will be the organisation that integrates costmonitoring, cloudservices operations and datadriven intelligence into a single, coherent stack.In practice, that means deploying platforms that continuously track spend by workload, automatically adjust cloud resources, outsource operational management, and feed upstream data into BI and AI systems that deliver actionable insights. With the right architecture, enterprises can trim waste, maintain high performance and innovate in real time.Ultimately, this triad--cloud cost optimisation, managed services and data intelligence--forms the new operational foundation for digitalnative, costaware and insightdriven organisations in 2025.In this edition, we have featured Actian. As the central governance system for enterprise data, the dualinterface Actian Data Intelligence Platform addresses these challenges through effective discovery, governance, and democratization capabilities. This modern, clouddelivered solution empowers enterprises to maximize data value while ensuring compliance and security through integrated cataloging, lineage, observability, and marketplace functionality.Let us know your thoughts!EditorialNavigating the Cloud EcosystemCopyright © 2025 ValleyMedia, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part of any text, photography or illustrations without written permission from the publisher is prohibited. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations. Views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the magazine and accordingly, no liability is assumed by the publisher thereof.Email:sales@cioreview.comeditor@cioreview.commarketing@cioreview.com NOVEMBER 24, 2025, Vol 14, Issue 50 (ISSN 2644-237X) ValleyMedia, Inc.To subscribe to CIOReviewVisit www.cioreview.com Visualizers*Some of the Insights are based on our interviews with CIOs and CXOsJustin Smith Managing Editoreditor@cioreview.comManaging EditorJustin SmithRobert Grey SmithHenry SmithCIOReviewEditorial StaffJoe PhilipLaura PintoDaniel HolmesLeah Jane
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