Executive Summary
Managing cloud costs at enterprise scale requires more than visibility—it demands governance, automation, and accurate financial data. In 2024, Gerdau partnered with Pier Cloud to modernize its FinOps practice, replacing manual processes with automated workflows and centralized cost management.
In less than three months, the company transformed the way it manages its multi-cloud environment by centralizing visibility across more than 180 AWS projects, automating operational tasks, and improving financial accountability across teams.
About Gerdau
Gerdau is one of the world’s largest steel producers, serving industries including construction, automotive, manufacturing, energy, and infrastructure.
Beyond steel production, the company also operates Gerdau Next, a business unit focused on construction, logistics, infrastructure, renewable energy, and startup acceleration. Its operations include 29 steel production facilities and approximately 30,000 employees across seven countries throughout the Americas.
The company also operates two iron ore mines, manages approximately 250,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations and conservation areas, maintains more than 70 Comercial Gerdau stores, and is the largest recycler of ferrous scrap in Latin America, processing approximately 11 million tons of scrap into steel each year. Its shares are listed on both the São Paulo and New York stock exchanges, and the company reported net revenue of R$14.7 billion.
As its cloud environment continued to grow in scale and complexity, Gerdau partnered with Pier Cloud to strengthen its FinOps capabilities and improve cloud financial management.
Cloud Cost Management Challenges
Limited visibility across a complex cloud environment
Before implementing Pier Cloud, Gerdau faced several operational challenges that affected cloud financial management.
Limited Cloud Cost Visibility
Technology and business teams lacked fast, reliable cloud cost data to support strategic decision-making. This reduced visibility made it difficult to monitor resource utilization, identify operational bottlenecks, and maintain effective cloud cost governance.
Manual Cloud Cost Management Processes
Many FinOps activities depended on manual execution, consuming valuable engineering time and making it harder to identify unused resources, monitor cloud efficiency, and maintain consistent reporting.
Fragmented Collaboration Across Teams
Cloud financial information was distributed across teams, making it difficult to establish a common understanding between technology and business stakeholders and clearly demonstrate the business value generated by cloud investments.
Why these challenges mattered
Without centralized visibility, governing cloud costs across a large multi-cloud environment becomes significantly more difficult. Disconnected data limits the ability of finance and engineering teams to work from a shared source of truth, slowing decision-making and delaying corrective actions.
Manual, spreadsheet-driven processes also introduce operational risk. Human error, inconsistent reporting, and time-consuming data reconciliation reduce analytical accuracy while limiting the organization’s ability to respond quickly to changing cloud consumption.
For an enterprise operating at Gerdau’s scale, these limitations increase the likelihood of accumulated financial inefficiencies and reduce the effectiveness of long-term cloud governance.
The Solution
Centralized visibility and automated FinOps workflows
After implementing Pier Cloud, Gerdau gained a centralized approach to managing its multi-cloud environment through automation and improved financial visibility.
Lighthouse
Lighthouse provided customized dashboards with detailed cloud cost data organized by cost centers, projects, and individual resources. This gave teams faster access to the information needed to make informed decisions across more than 180 AWS projects.
Automation
Automated workflows—including the automatic shutdown of obsolete resources—reduced the operational effort required to maintain cloud governance while improving overall operational efficiency.
Automated chargeback
Pier Cloud implemented an automated cloud cost allocation process that replaced spreadsheet-based workflows and reduced manual errors.
AWS chargeback calculations incorporated all of Gerdau’s internal allocation rules, including currency conversion. Financial data became automatically available to the finance team, allowing accounting and financial processes to be completed without manual consolidation.
Data processing architecture
Through Lighthouse, Pier Cloud collects AWS billing data using Amazon S3. The platform then performs ETL processing to generate the cost allocation and visibility model required for Gerdau’s environment, while Amazon Athena is used to query and process billing information.
Results
Within three months of implementation, Gerdau achieved measurable operational improvements.
Customer Testimonial
The partnership with Pier Cloud has been transformative. We’ve improved visibility into our cloud environment, strengthened cost control, automated key operational processes, and better connected technology metrics with business needs. This journey is just beginning, but it has already delivered meaningful improvements across our operations. Lucas Viana – FinOps Analyst, Gerdau
Lower operational costs
Automation and the optimization of unused resources improved operational efficiency while reducing cloud-related expenses.
In addition to Lighthouse, Gerdau adopted CCA (Cloud Compliance Analyzer), which uses platform-native rules to identify opportunities related to cost optimization, compliance, and security.
CCA securely collects cloud environment information through SDK connections using Assume Role access to customer accounts. Based on this data, the platform identifies idle resources, recommends best practices, and suggests technology upgrades that improve infrastructure efficiency.
Faster operations
Customized dashboards and automated alerts accelerated decision-making while significantly reducing the manual effort required for day-to-day FinOps operations, saving several hours of operational work.
Stronger business alignment
Centralized cloud visibility connected technical metrics with business objectives, improving collaboration between finance and technology teams and increasing the strategic value of cloud reporting.
Looking Ahead
Gerdau plans to continue expanding its use of Pier Cloud by focusing on three strategic priorities.
Strengthening business alignment
Further connect cloud KPIs with business objectives to improve financial decision-making and better demonstrate the business value generated by cloud investments.
Expanding automation
Develop additional automated workflows that further improve operational efficiency and cloud governance.
Supporting sustainability initiatives
Continue incorporating sustainable practices into its technology strategy, aligning cloud operations with the company’s environmental and social commitments.
