Measuring IT Success: Beyond SLAs to Business KPIs.

Sanjay K Mohindroo

Move beyond SLAs. Discover how CIOs are redefining IT success with business KPIs that drive boardroom decisions and strategic growth.

Rewriting the Rules of IT Leadership

As a technology leader who’s spent over two decades building digital ecosystems, I’ve come to believe that the biggest shift CIOs and CTOs must embrace isn’t technological—it’s philosophical. The way we define IT success is overdue for a rewrite.

For years, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) were the holy grail of IT performance. But in today’s boardrooms, uptime isn’t enough. Senior leaders now want to know:

How is IT moving the needle on revenue, retention, resilience, and reinvention?

This article isn’t a guide to ditch SLAs—they matter. But it’s an invitation to expand our lens. It's about evolving from gatekeepers of service to architects of value. From tracking response times to driving business outcomes.

If you’re a CIO, CTO, CDO, or a board member guiding digital transformation, this is your call to think beyond the dashboard and towards decisions that shape competitive advantage.

The Strategic Shift in Boardroom Conversations

Let’s be blunt: no CEO lies awake thinking about incident response times.

They’re thinking about market share, customer lifetime value, compliance risks, and margins under pressure. Yet IT reports often focus on metrics that—while technically sound—don’t connect to the strategic story.

This disconnect creates a credibility gap.

And in an era where digital is the business, that gap can cost more than reputation—it can cost relevance.

What’s needed now is a shared language between tech and business. One where CIOs don’t just defend budgets—they propose investments. Where IT isn’t seen as a cost centre, it becomes a growth engine.

Bridging this divide starts with rethinking what we measure—and why. That’s where business KPIs come in.

Where the Market is Headed

The shift is already underway.

🔹 87% of CEOs say digital transformation is a top priority (Gartner, 2024). 🔹 Yet only 43% of CIOs feel confident linking IT investments to business value (Forrester, 2023).

That’s a dangerous mismatch.

As cloud, AI, and low-code platforms become mainstream, the bar is rising. IT leaders aren’t being asked if their systems are reliable. They’re being asked:

• Did that automation save OPEX?

• Did our new app boost customer retention?

• Is our data platform enabling faster M&A integration?

This isn’t a future scenario. It’s today’s reality in firms like DBS Bank, Microsoft, and Unilever, where digital KPIs sit alongside financial metrics in investor reports.

And let’s not forget the external pressure: Investors, regulators, and customers all expect more transparency. ESG metrics. Tech ethics. Cyber resilience. The scope is widening.

#DigitalTransformationLeadership isn’t about deploying the latest tech stack. It’s about creating measurable, meaningful impact.

Lessons from the Frontline

Across my roles—from IT Director in manufacturing to CIO in financial services—I’ve made my fair share of mistakes. But each brought lessons worth sharing:

1. SLAs can create a false sense of control.

In one instance, our IT operations team proudly reported 99.9% uptime. But marketing was bleeding leads due to slow website performance on peak days. We were “compliant,” yet far from “successful.” That’s when we started tracking drop-offs and conversion lag—true KPIs that changed the conversation.

2. IT metrics need context.

Saying we processed 100,000 transactions sounds impressive. But saying we reduced transaction time by 40%, resulting in $2M savings? That gets attention. Context bridges the trust gap with non-technical leaders.

3. Build joint accountability.

The best outcomes came when we co-owned metrics with business heads. For a digital sales platform, we didn’t just track uptime—we tracked qualified leads, close rates, and revenue per lead. It made every IT dashboard feel like a growth dashboard.

These shifts weren’t easy. They required a culture change, not just a metrics change. But the results were transformational.

From SLAs to KPIs: A Leadership Framework

Here’s a framework I’ve refined over the years—simple enough to apply tomorrow, powerful enough to spark boardroom change.

The 4-Lens KPI Framework for CIOs

Lens.              Description.                                                       Sample KPI.

Operational - Core system performance, reliability, support - Mean time to recover (MTTR), SLA adherence

Value - performance, reliability, support - Revenue uplift from a new platform, cost savings from automation

Experience -  User satisfaction, adoption, and productivity - Net Promoter Score (NPS), digital adoption rate

Strategic - Long-term enablement and agility - Time-to-market for new products, tech debt reduction, innovation index

To help technology leaders shift from traditional SLAs to more impactful business KPIs, I use a simple four-lens framework. The Operational lens focuses on core system performance, reliability, and support—metrics like Mean Time to Recover (MTTR) and SLA adherence are typical here. The Value lens ties IT performance directly to business outcomes, tracking indicators such as revenue uplift from new platforms or cost savings achieved through automation. The Experience lens captures how users interact with IT systems, using metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and digital adoption rates to assess satisfaction and productivity. Finally, the Strategic lens evaluates long-term business enablement and agility, with KPIs such as time-to-market for new products, reduction in technical debt, and innovation indices. Together, these lenses provide a well-rounded, business-centric approach to measuring IT success.

Start with one business unit. Pick 1 KPI per lens. Align with the business leader. Then scale.

#ITOperatingModelEvolution begins with a small step—redefining what success looks like.

Stories That Shifted the Narrative

Retail Transformation – SLAs to Sales Per Square Foot

In a retail chain I consulted, IT consistently hit 98% SLA targets. But stores were underperforming. We restructured KPIs to focus on digital shelf visibility, POS uptime during peak hours, and click-and-collect cycle time. Sales went up 12% within 3 quarters. #DataDrivenDecisionMaking

Healthcare System – From Downtime to Doctor Time

A hospital group tracked downtime. But the CEO wanted to know: “How much more time are doctors spending with patients?” We began tracking appointment wait time, EMR load speed, and clinical note accuracy. The result? Patient satisfaction rose 18%.

Logistics & Supply Chain – Aligning with the CFO

The CFO didn’t care about server loads—he cared about inventory holding costs. So we mapped system uptime to supply chain flow. One SAP module’s delay was costing ₹1.6 crore/month in excess stock. That insight drove a strategic upgrade with board approval.

The Future of IT Measurement

The future belongs to leaders who can connect digital performance with human impact.

We’re entering a world where:

• AI initiatives will be judged by margin impact, not model accuracy.

• Cyber resilience will be tied to business continuity KPIs.

• Cloud transformation will be evaluated on agility, not just cost.

It’s time for CIOs to own the language of business, not just the language of technology. That means evolving from reporting what happened to influencing what should happen.

Start Here:

• Audit your current IT dashboards. How many metrics can your CEO use in a board deck?

• Ask business heads: “What keeps you up at night?” Then reframe your KPIs to address that.

• Empower product owners and IT teams to jointly define success—not just tasks.

Metrics shape mindset. And mindset shapes leadership.

As you think about your IT measurement strategy, ask yourself: Is your dashboard driving decisions—or just reporting activity?

Let’s move from service-level thinking to strategy-level impact.

Let’s start measuring what truly matters.

And let’s build a future where IT is not just aligned with the business—but embedded in its very definition of success.

I’d love to hear from fellow leaders:

What KPIs have changed your IT conversations at the boardroom table?