---
title: "Investment Planning"
description: "Phase budget, FTE resource planning, CAPEX-to-OPEX shift and financing strategies for cloud transformation."
sidebar:
  order: 4
  label: "Investment Planning"
source_url: "https://framework.stackit.cloud/advisory/business-case-and-financial-planning/investment-planning/"
source_file: "docs/advisory/business-case-and-financial-planning/investment-planning.mdx"
---

## The CAPEX→OPEX shift: what it means for Finance

Cloud transformation changes the balance sheet structure. On-premises infrastructure is fixed assets (CAPEX) — capitalised, depreciated over 4–5 years. Cloud spend is operating cost (OPEX) — recognised as expense immediately.

**Implications for Finance:**

| Aspect             | On-premises (CAPEX)         | Cloud (OPEX)            |
| ------------------ | --------------------------- | ----------------------- |
| Balance sheet      | Fixed assets (capitalised)  | No capitalisation       |
| P&L                | Depreciation over 4–5 years | Immediate expense       |
| Cash flow          | Large initial outflow       | Steady monthly payments |
| Budget flexibility | Low (committed)             | High (scalable)         |
| Budget type        | CAPEX budget                | OPEX budget             |

**Important for budget planning:** Cloud spend requires adequate OPEX budget. Organisations that have historically worked with CAPEX budgets for IT infrastructure must adapt their budget process — OPEX budgets for cloud are not the same category as traditional IT CAPEX.

## Phase budget: what costs when?

### Phase 1: Advisory (Months 1–4)

| Cost item                | Description                                  | Budget           |
| ------------------------ | -------------------------------------------- | ---------------- |
| CCoE build-up            | Recruitment or internal redeployment (4 FTE) | TEUR 40–80       |
| External consulting      | Cloud strategy, business case modelling      | TEUR 80–150      |
| Training Advisory phase  | Track A + B for leadership team              | TEUR 15–30       |
| Tools & licences         | Cloud assessment tools, IaC toolchain setup  | TEUR 10–20       |
| **Phase 1 total budget** |                                              | **TEUR 145–280** |

### Phase 2: Adoption — Foundation (Months 5–10)

| Cost item                    | Description                                 | Budget           |
| ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- | ---------------- |
| Landing zone build-up        | Platform Engineering (internal + external)  | TEUR 60–120      |
| Training technical teams     | Track C/D/E for Platform + Security         | TEUR 50–90       |
| STACKIT production licensing | First production environments               | TEUR 80–150/year |
| Migration Wave 1 (pilots)    | 3–5 workloads, often with migration partner | TEUR 50–100      |
| **Phase 2 total budget**     |                                             | **TEUR 240–460** |

### Phase 3: Migration (Months 11–24)

| Cost item                           | Description                                 | Budget                         |
| ----------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ |
| Migration waves 2–N                 | Per wave, lift-and-shift + optimisation     | TEUR 30–80/wave                |
| Parallel operation (dual-run)       | On-prem + cloud simultaneously, temporary   | TEUR 40–100/month              |
| Optimisation & FinOps               | Cloud cost optimisation, reserved instances | Self-financing through savings |
| **Phase 3 total budget** (10 waves) |                                             | **TEUR 400–900**               |

### Total budget overview: 24 months

| Scenario                                          | Total investment  |
| ------------------------------------------------- | ----------------- |
| Conservative (small organisation, \<50 workloads) | TEUR 400–600      |
| Mid-size (50–150 workloads)                       | TEUR 600–1,200    |
| Large (>150 workloads)                            | TEUR 1,200–2,500+ |

## FTE resource plan

| Phase                          | CCoE core | External support    | Total effort |
| ------------------------------ | --------- | ------------------- | ------------ |
| Advisory (3 months)            | 2–3 FTE   | 1–2 FTE consultants | 3–5 FTE      |
| Adoption foundation (6 months) | 4–6 FTE   | 2–3 FTE             | 6–9 FTE      |
| Migration (12 months)          | 5–8 FTE   | 1–3 FTE             | 6–11 FTE     |
| Steady state (post-migration)  | 3–5 FTE   | As needed           | 3–5 FTE      |

**Important:** FTE resources are the most common bottleneck, not the budget. The ability to release or recruit the right people for the CCoE largely determines the speed of transformation.

## Financing strategies

**Option 1: Fully OPEX**  
All cloud spend within the running budget. Simplest option, no CAPEX request required. Requires adequate OPEX IT budget.

**Option 2: Migration investment as CAPEX, ongoing cloud spend as OPEX**  
Initial migration and CCoE build-up costs as a one-time CAPEX investment — capitalizable as a transformation project. Ongoing cloud consumption costs as OPEX. Advantage: separation of one-time vs. recurring costs.

**Option 3: Grants and subsidies**  
For healthcare: KHZG funding for cloud digitalization projects. For SMEs: KfW digitalization funding (Programme 362). For public institutions: various EU digitalization funds.

## Practical steps

1. **Align budget categories** with Finance and CFO: CAPEX vs. OPEX classification
2. **Anchor OPEX budget planning** early in the annual planning cycle
3. **Align FTE plan** with HR and workforce controlling — who is released, who is recruited?
4. **Check funding opportunities** (KHZG, KfW, EU funds)
5. **Formalise investment approval** in the Cloud Strategy Board