[CRConrad]

> You redefined cost / profit center

Well, those are rather funny categories in the first place. Cost and profit aren't complementary categories; cost and revenue are. Profit consists of them both (i.e. the difference between their sums across all departments).

Just as there are no pure revenue centers -- every department has costs! -- it could be argued that there are no pure cost centers: Every department contributes to revenue in its own way. Without maintenance, you'd soon have no services to sell; without R&D you'd soon have no new products to sell... Heck, even HR -- without it, you'd soon have no personnel to staff the other departments.

Seems a bit skewed that some departments get to hog the "profit" label all to themselves while others are -- pejoratively, in MBA-speak -- condemned to the "cost" category.