Of all the "big companies" I've seen, Facebook has the best internal IT. A lot of those policies were set by Yishan Wong; basically, if something can be done more efficiently by an individual employee than by using IT, the process is broken. (http://algeri-wong.com/yishan/) Facebook IT is basically a cache, but if something is faster to get from the Apple Store or whatever, that's how they did it -- not sure how it is done now.
It's hilarious how in big companies it takes weeks+ to get things done in IT which could be trivially accomplished with a credit card and web browser, for less money. Yes, there are security policies (which should be enforced in the infrastructure and by user policy, not by end user hardware alone, and it should be carrot vs. stick for common builds), but things like ordering keyboards and chairs shouldn't be bottlenecked.
If you think corporate IT is dysfunctional, try working at a government agency or a public university.
Something as simple as buying a new desktop computer to replace a ten year old, dying computer turns into a multi-week affair where every step of the purchase is stymied by some layer of bureaucracy. (Inevitably, one of those layers of bureaucracy is on vacation this week and won't get around to rejecting your purchase requisition until next Monday.)
If your purchase exceeds some magic dollar amount and has to go out for bids, ${DEITY} help you. You might put out an RFP for a toaster and end up with Purchasing selecting a bidder offering a lawnmower because they're a small business, woman-owned business, or minority-owned business, and that fact gave them enough extra points in the selection matrix to beat all of the bidders offering a toaster.
I spent most of 2004-2010 working on government/military (including NATO and Iraqi and Afghan government, which were the worst) IT contracting.
For instance, it took me 5 months and a 3-star general's approval needed to make a (trivial) firewall change, between two lobes of a network all at the same accreditation level. It only happened THAT fast because making the change had a measurable impact on trauma care (i.e. it probably saved >1 life).
Ah, yes, now I am recalling the AC Adapter Saga from my last employer. We all got free cell phones (with free data plans), but for some reason mine didn’t have an AC adapter in the box. No big deal; I could just recharge it over USB. But it took weeks if not months before the adapter actually arrived. I pointed out to the HR person that if they would reimburse me, I would be happy to run out to Radio Shack and buy the appropriate adapter, but of course, That Simply Was Not Done.
The kicker, of course, is that my employer WAS THE COMPANY THAT MADE THE CELL PHONES.
Thanks for the link, it has great comments, but for me the most important was: "every modern IT organization is actively destroying value in their company", which in the Big Co I work is totally true.
It's hilarious how in big companies it takes weeks+ to get things done in IT which could be trivially accomplished with a credit card and web browser, for less money. Yes, there are security policies (which should be enforced in the infrastructure and by user policy, not by end user hardware alone, and it should be carrot vs. stick for common builds), but things like ordering keyboards and chairs shouldn't be bottlenecked.