"IT's only usefulness to a business is in how it supports that business."

The usefulness for business lies in the eye of the beholder.

Because IT structures in some sense separate the business logic from the business implementation via the IT process IT delivers insights beyond the pure usefulness in the day to day work. However usually this is ignored because IT is not a profit center, thus IT has to shut up and let the cash collectors speak.

Thats way I support the view that some part of the IT should be IT for the ITs sake. The reason for such an approach is called Serendipity.