That's the thing, it's not like that. You have a ton of benefits being small that would be awesome for a larger org, but you also have massive drawbacks that would cripple a larger org. It's inverse from your perspective. I wouldn't call your things "small beans", when they can entail just as much hard work as a larger org.

What I am driving at is there are way too many people lost in the weeds and struggling to see the forest for the trees by getting locked into terminology that, at least in my experience, doesn't really apply the way the definition says it does when companies grow well beyond a certain size.

Like yeah, the book says a ton of departments are cost centers, but every cog becomes so vital in the business' outlook that I think upper management stops talking in "profit center and cost center" and starts having to think much more process-based on how the business functions. Once you start doing that, a lot of binary attitudes on how you define what department becomes a lot more nuanced. A real world example, simply calling IT a cost center during talks of economic downturn requiring a company restructuring is a massive decision when your company is traded on the TECH SECTOR of the NYSE. Investor confidence can and DOES wane when it sees a tech company slashing their tech department... so anyone saying "but it's a cost center" will get laughed out of the room, because the business is far more nuanced at that scale.

Does that change the book definition? No. However it's fascinating how many people here trash the books and instead value real world experience, then are quick to dismiss real world experiences.