The best IT organization is the one you don’t notice.

I feel that there is a lot of truth behind this statement. I am fond of this saying and have often made it my mantra.

On the surface, this saying implies that the IT department is keeping things running smoothly and meeting expectations. Think about it for a second - Your email is available where ever you are and you can access your desktop from home (and have it LOOK LIKE your desktop). Your communications teams can easily FTP sensitive files to your client’s servers through a seamless secure portal. Your marketing teams have access to all their varied resources (web apps, CRM, etc.) when they are securely logged in first thing in the morning. Your team of accounting analysts and don't have to hop on one foot and enter 3 different passwords to run their SQL query for last quarter's results that they will have to copy over to Excel to make it readable/useful, it's all on a form. The company's flexible bandwidth solution meets the demand for the video conference for the semiannual financial director's online conference and scales back at night when everyone has gone home.

I think it runs much deeper than just meeting expectations and remaining in the background. I think that it is the reflection of an organization that has taken the time to do proper strategic thinking and planning. They have the right pieces in the right places and anticipate needs rather than wait for customers to come to them. You don’t hear about systems going down because they have backups in place. You hear through the grapevine that the company lost its internet connection but you did not notice it because they had an instant on wireless cellular bridge for back up. Plan for the worst....and make sure it works.

Organizations like this tend not to be on the “trendy” bandwagon with every new app/language/device that comes along. They may have some gadget freaks within the organization, but these folks are more apt to delve into the “how does this help me do my job better” software instead of the “hey I can watch TV on my phone” crowd.

The hardware and software that runs these types of organizations need not be cutting edge or expensive. With the growth of SaaS, Web applications, low cost virtualization software, domestic broadband penetration, and the wider acceptance of alternative Operating Systems (like Linux); companies are well positioned to do more with less.