Q2 2023: IBM Cloud’s cost management lacked month-over-month analysis and multi-level filtering (service/account/tag), making investigating anomalies and understanding spend at scale nearly impossible.

Finance managers had to export billing files to Excel/other tools—leaving the native tool and increasing time-to-complete basic tasks like how much was spent last quarter versus this one.

Customer Success, too, spent significant time on custom reports for users, costing the org $1.5–$2.5M/year in time alone (internal survey, Q2 2023).

Third-party analyst reviews (Gartner/Forrester) and my own competitive teardown showed IBM trailing peers on cost management capabilities, undermining contract renewal, straining internal resources, and fueling transparency concerns in open-ended NPS feedback.

Given the ripple effects this area had, leadership created a “tiger team” of 25 cross-functional stakeholders—PMs, Designers, Engineers, me—to find a solution to these long standing gaps in the UX.

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