What you're really asking is what is the value to the business of IT Operations "keeping the business running".
What's the point of IT Ops?
What revenue do those systems bring in? How are people not able to do their jobs when something's broken?

Talk to people and find out the cost basis for lost hours of any application being offline, including the hourly financial cost to the company when x number of executives are sitting on their thumbs when your mail server is offline.
Or, talk about how much money the company made because you kept the systems running.

Figure out any and all cost savings measures you've put in place, such as aggregating support contracts to save money.
Find out how many hours of staff time you saved by preventing that last virus outbreak.
Figure out how long it takes to get a laptop replaced and how you've improved that over time.
Figure out a few basic ideas for one-time spends that have 3 year cost returns, like replacing all those CRTs with LCDs.

Other than high level stats, 'did you know we run this many servers?' which are interesting but don't really mean anything, most of the statistics we IT geeks would come up with are just going to come across as confusing or self-gloating.
The only numbers that really do matter are the ones you can map back to the company earning more dollars over time and the staff hours saved (which should map to a salary/hour cost).
Money and time.

Then do a half-hour presentation of all those numbers over the past year, call it a 'Year in Review'.
Then, put on your teflon jacket and ask for advice on how IT can provide better service and keep the business running.

I'm doing my part by eating cows, pigs, and chickens while I drink all that beer I've been brewing.

I mean, just like yeast, those guys are nothing more than methane-fuming CO2 producing beasts slowly deteriorating the planet.

They must be destroyed! Mostly in a saucepan on my zero-carbon footprint inductive stovetop!

Also, all that tasty meat and alcohol should help end my life early, thus saving the planet that much more.

Clearly, nothing destroys the earth faster than a vegetarian.

Especially one with a yeast infection.

I've never used RBS Worldpay, but was notified several weeks ago that my financial records for the past 20 years, as well as SSN, were compromised.

What's incredibly distressing is that RBS Worldpay (part of Citizens Financial Group) shares data with other affiliates. I just have a basic checking account in one of their banks, that's it--no credit cards, no gift cards, no payroll cards.

However, they didn't go public with the news or notify any customers until the day before Xmas eve in December 2008: http://news.prnewswire.com/ViewContent.aspx?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/12-23-2008/0004946566&EDATE=

Even more distressing was that when I called them during the first week of January to get information on why my data was exposed even though I don't use RBS Worldpay services, I was told it was just them being careful and 20-30 cards were the sum total of illicitly accessed information to date--clearly a lie.

And it gets even worse--the compromise was identified and recognized by them in June/July 2008!

In other words, they didn't give a shit about exposing their customer data until they lost some large money.

Well, having been in the same spot, here is my FWIW contribution.
1. Treat your people like the people first. Some of the most interesting people I've met are complete assholes at work.
2. Know when they work for you, and make sure they know when you work for them.
3. Get them the tools they need to get your job done.
4. It's all your jobs, not yours--it's a team. That's why it's not just you or 1 programmer working.
5. Demand transparency within the team at all times. Obfuscation within the team should be cause for a pink slip.
6. Encourage a culture of admitting how you fucked it up, then helping everyone not do the same thing.
7. Dont say yes or no, say how.
8. Set a simple vision for what your group needs to accomplish, not just individuals. Good tacticians will find a way to provide value when they understand the point.
9. Meetings have a purpose or they're over. Whoever's late, including you, stands the rest of the meeting and at the next appropriate opportunity buys the next round of drinks.
10. And, for gawd's sake, avoid all management advice which is based on an ordered list.

We went through a similar thinking and I'm very very glad we did two things.

First, we got our 1 year olds a broken standalone keyboard not connected to anything. It taught some basic keystroke concepts and gave us a way to tell them to be careful with their computer, as well as keep them engaged in imitative play while we were typing away.
And they could beat the crap out of it without worry.

Second, at 2 years we got a Clickstart (http://www.leapfrog.com/en/shop/special_offers/clickstart_offer.html). This thing is nearly indestructible, teaches basic mouse skills, teaches color and letter recognition, and is highly interactive. There are also commercial disc 'plugins' for it such as Dora, Nemo, etc. The kids absolutely love 'their computer'.
It's not a laptop, but it has an IR transmitter so it's portable in a limited sense. It's also very cheap (well under US100) and requires RCA A/V out.

Any real laptop would be destroyed by now--and our kids are fairly gentle with gadgets...but lets just say...soup happens.
And throwup.

And then we let the kids use the Mac Books to play flash games on PBSKids, NickJR, and Starfall.

We went through a similar thinking and I'm very very glad we did two things.

First, we got our 1 year olds a broken standalone keyboard not connected to anything. It taught some basic keystroke concepts and gave us a way to tell them to be careful with their computer, as well as keep them engaged in imitative play while we were typing away.
And they could beat the crap out of it without worry.

Second, at 2 years we got a Clickstart (http://www.leapfrog.com/en/shop/special_offers/clickstart_offer.html). This thing is nearly indestructible, teaches basic mouse skills, teaches color and letter recognition, and is highly interactive. There are also commercial disc 'plugins' for it such as Dora, Nemo, etc. The kids absolutely love 'their computer'.
It's not a laptop, but it has an IR transmitter so it's portable in a limited sense. It's also very cheap (well under US100) and requires RCA A/V out.

Any real laptop would be destroyed by now--and our kids are fairly gentle with gadgets...but lets just say...soup happens.
And throwup.

And then we let the kids use the Mac Books to play flash games on PBSKids, NickJR, and Starfall.