My wife is literally consulting for a big bank where it takes them 6+ months to get an on-premise VM setup and configured.
I think the conversation has turned from "Can we spend more?" to "Can you please try and spend less?"
"Can you please try and spend less?"
"Sure, we can get some on-prem machines. They'll pay for themselves in 6 months. I just need permissions from Finance to spend some CAPEX, and get IT and Facilities to cooperate"
"Ugh, actually please keep using AWS. But try and spend less.. if you can and this does not compromise deadlines"
Fwiw, I think a lot of companies have this problem.