How Norstella turned cloud commits into savings without compromising innovation

Enterprises are bleeding cloud dollars in plain sight. Norstella found a way to stop the leak.

During a recent Flywl webinar, Tariq Hassani, Head of Enterprise Architecture at Norstella, shared how his team uncovered hidden savings while keeping innovation on track. Joined by Flywl CEO Ankur Srivastava and strategic advisor Michael Van Keulen (MVK), Tariq walked through practical ways to align technology, finance, and procurement teams around smarter cloud spend.

Head to Flywl’s on-demand webinar with Norstella’s Tariq Hassani, Flywl CEO Ankur Srivastava, and strategic advisor MVK to watch the conversation, or jump to the recap below. 

The challenge: growth, complexity, and commitments

Norstella, a global leader in pharma intelligence solutions, helps life sciences companies bring therapies to market faster by uniting market-leading organizations. With rapid growth and multiple acquisitions, Norstella’s technology environment became increasingly complex spanning from AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Marketplace.

“As a leader, I feel that we are responsible to bring the savings within the organizations. And the key behind getting these savings is to keep a close eye on these costs, on these renewals, on these commits.” – Tariq Hassani, Norstella

Procurement as an enabler, not a roadblock

Historically, cloud marketplaces have been seen as difficult to navigate, where procurement teams often rely on spreadsheets and manual processes that create barriers. Tariq and MVK agreed that Flywl’s role is not to replace procurement but to enable it bringing visibility, streamlining administration, and unlocking savings opportunities that would otherwise go unnoticed.

MVK put it succinctly, “It’s a catalyst. It’s a flywheel. No pun intended.”

Visibility creates leverage

One of the turning points for Norstella was when they saw their own data in action. By running actual data through Flywl’s Compass platform, Norstella gained consolidated visibility into renewals, contracts, and savings opportunities tied to enterprise cloud commits.

This visibility gave engineering and procurement leaders the leverage to negotiate smarter and act faster. Tariq explained, “It opens up the door for better negotiation, where there are chances to lose if you don't act. It's all about acting at the right time. This tool was a big highlight from my perspective."

From “If” to “How”

A consistent theme throughout the webinar: the debate about whether to use marketplaces is over. The question now is how to do it effectively. Aligning procurement, FinOps, and engineering is no longer optional — it’s the only way to maximize the value of enterprise cloud commitments. As MVK noted, “Having one single source of truth and the option to run multiple scenarios is very powerful.” 

Key takeaways

1. Savings and speed go hand-in-hand.
   Cloud optimization isn’t just about cutting costs. It’s about enabling teams to move faster and focus on innovation.
   
   
2. Visibility is the game changer.
   Enterprises that see their renewals, commitments, and marketplace opportunities clearly are in a stronger position to negotiate and deliver savings.
   
   
3. The conversation has shifted from “if” to “how.”
   Marketplaces are now essential. The leaders who figure out how to operationalize them effectively will drive the next wave of competitive advantage.

The session closed with a simple takeaway: seeing their own data in action with Flywl gave Norstella’s procurement team the clarity to move from skepticism into confidence.

“Until you do the POC, you won’t see the added value. Once we saw the numbers, the turning point was clear.” – Tariq Hassani

Wondering what hidden savings are in your cloud spend? Get started with Flywl.