From SLAs to outcomes: A new way of measuring workplace technology

Workplace technology has emerged from the background to take center stage in business performance. To keep work moving, organizations rely on a highly interconnected digital environment with cloud applications, collaboration platforms, devices, identity tools, AI and automation. In this context, uptime on its own says very little. What matters is whether technology helps employees work productively, securely and without friction.

Now, the challenge is to make technology a driver of business outcomes, not just a support function. Leaders expect investments in the workplace to improve employee experience, limit operational disruption, enable secure hybrid work, support AI adoption and deliver measurable business value. This raises the bar for service partners: It’s not enough to hit operational targets — they must also show how technology is improving the way the business runs.

But many organizations are still measuring performance the same way, with service level agreements (SLAs) built for a different era. Work today demands something more robust. It isn’t enough for systems just to be “up.” They also need to perform reliably across devices, networks and locations.

We’ve already shifted from office-based work to hybrid or remote work. The next shift is more fundamental: from activity-based service measurement to business impact measurement. The key question becomes whether workplace services improve productivity, reduce friction and produce measurable business outcomes.

Business outcomes are critical to success

Here’s a simple way to understand the shift:

• SLAs measure whether a service is available.
• Experience level agreements (XLAs) measure how employees experience that service.
• Outcome-based agreements measure whether technology improves business performance.

Organizations increasingly need all three layers, but the real differentiator is the ability to connect technology performance to operational and commercial results.

This is forcing the industry to look for better ways to measure performance. Traditional SLAs, which focused on technical indicators, said little about whether employees could get their work done. To address that gap, organizations began introducing XLAs.

Instead of measuring the system alone, XLAs measure employees’ perceptions of the digital workplace — things such as device and application performance and overall employee sentiment and satisfaction.

XLAs were an important step forward, but they had their limitations. While they changed the focus from infrastructure to experience and from technical performance to how people interact with the tools, they still stopped short of capturing the impact on the business.

That impact is now impossible to ignore. If employees can’t access the systems they need or if applications fail, productivity slows. If technology is now central to performance, how we measure it must reflect its impact on business outcomes.

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Measuring outcomes: The real test

At its core, business is about growth — expanding, improving and moving forward. For most organizations, that depends heavily on technology. If workplace technology isn’t helping people do their jobs effectively, it’s holding the business back.

The real test of workplace technology goes beyond how it performs to what it delivers for the business.

Measuring technology means looking at what happens after the technology is used. In practice, this means tracking a focused set of business-facing indicators alongside operational metrics. These may include time to productivity for new hires, reduction in repeat incidents, productive hours restored to employees, improvement in task completion rates, fewer workflow interruptions and avoidance of delays that affect revenue or service. When workplace services are measured this way, technology performance becomes easier to evaluate in business terms rather than technical terms alone.

A good example comes from a large international airline that worked with NTT DATA. At first glance, the issue seemed small — intermittent failures in systems supporting airport devices. The impact, however, was anything but. When those systems didn’t work as expected, boarding slowed, queues built up and, in some cases, departures were delayed. What seemed like a purely technical issue on the surface became an operational one.

Traditional SLAs would have focused on whether the system was available or how quickly the issue was resolved. But those metrics didn’t capture what mattered: how fixing the technical issue reduced delays and kept operations running smoothly.

That’s the difference between outcome-based measurement and earlier approaches, and the same principle applies beyond aviation. In healthcare, workplace issues can delay clinician workflows and affect service delivery. In retail, they can disrupt frontline operations during peak trading periods. In financial services, they can slow compliance-heavy processes where delays create customer, operational and regulatory risk. It’s why outcome-based workplace measurement is becoming increasingly relevant across industries.

What we reward is what we get

Most service delivery models are built around key performance indicators (KPIs) that track efficiency: How quickly work happens, how consistently those targets are met and how reliably processes are followed.

While those measurements create clarity, they also shape behavior. For example, teams become more focused on closing tickets than on addressing the bigger problems those issues create. The work gets done and targets are met, but the same issues continue to surface.

Outcome-based thinking changes the focus from how efficiently work is processed — although this remains an important part of overall service delivery — to what that work changes for the business.

This requires more than new metrics. It involves a different way of defining success, delivering improvement and demonstrating impact.

A new model for partnership

Measuring outcomes seems straightforward in theory; in practice, it’s more complex. The first step is defining the outcome, which starts with reframing the problem. It’s not just that a system is slow or that an application keeps failing; it’s that it affects business operations.

This shift in perspective changes what you focus on. Instead of looking at isolated issues, it focuses on the bigger picture of what needs to improve for the business to run more efficiently.

This is where a more structural approach becomes essential. It needs to connect how the problem is defined, how it is addressed and how the impact is demonstrated.

At NTT DATA, this comes together through our Workplace Say-Do-Prove (SPD) Framework

• Say: Identify and agree on the business outcome
• Do: Address the technical drivers behind it so the way work gets done improves
• Prove: Demonstrate, with evidence, the impact on the business

Many providers can define outcomes, and some can deliver improvements. But far fewer can consistently demonstrate the impact of those changes on the business.

That’s where the difference lies — in aligning what is committed. What differentiates an outcome-based partnership is the ability to both define outcomes and to govern them consistently. That means agreeing on the business result, identifying the technical drivers, establishing the evidence required to validate progress and reviewing performance through a shared accountability model. This creates a closed loop between commitment, delivery and proof, helping organizations move from reporting service activity to demonstrating measurable business impact.

From service to delivery to shared accountability

Technology leaders are no longer thinking purely in terms of systems, uptime and support. They’re also thinking in terms of business performance — how work flows, how operations run and what impact technology has on business value.

As that mindset evolves, so does the relationship between organizations and their service partners. Contracts are beginning to reflect both outcomes and activity, aligning these to what the business needs to achieve.

Our Workplace SDP Framework does exactly that. By defining clear outcomes, addressing the technical drivers behind them and proving the impact on the business, it connects technology to the value it creates. Changing the focus from simply delivering a service to improving how the business runs also affects the relationship between the organization and the service provider. It creates a model where both sides are accountable for outcomes.

In today’s work environment, technology is core to how the business runs — and the service providers behind it should be measured by the outcomes they deliver. At NTT DATA, that’s what we focus on when we partner with you: Delivering outcomes and proving the value behind them.

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This article was co-authored by Vishal Brown, Digital Workplace Strategy and Go-to-Market Leader at NTT DATA.