Pros
The people on the front lines are hard working, in many cases passionate and understand the business.
Cons
Middle management suffers from amateur attempts at empire building and clumsy political associations. Power and deference are often given to middle managers without any seeming reason other than past history at other companies. Without a dedicated CIO, the IT department has no representation with the business and is the center of blame for any failures by the business to produce result. On the flip side, the business takes all credit for any successes while IT is simply considered an expenditure of cash. If the business is often forced to make necessary upgrades because the infrastructure has reached a critical level and still can drag their feet if money is involved. HR no longer represents the people but is in place to keep the wheels on the cart. During my time, I never witnessed a single change based on the exit interviews provided by employees who left the company.
