So after numerous discussions and some research, I've come up with the following simple research. Please let me know if any one has any thoughts on it. I plan to share it with stakeholders later this week:
Objective:
At present ‘Cost Centre’ is the lowest unit at which cost related information can be stored. The Business Group has identified a need to allow costing to be done at a level lower than Cost Centre (sub cost centre) without affecting the hierarchy above.
Approach to follow:
1 – Identify key people and create a focus group that represents cross functional interests of this endeavor. This may include Project Sponsors, Business Users Impacted and even the Vendor if needed.
2 – Agree with the above focus group on the objectives and scope of the impact analysis and what is expected to come out of it as findings and also the boundaries of the task (in-scope, out of scope etc).
3 – Use the focus group to learn the background behind why setting the unit of an organization to the cost centre is a problem or a limitation, the process behind how this is done currently and possibly also how fixing this will lead to improvements.
4 – If there is a business imperative behind the initiative, determine the time frame by which this change is expected to occur.
5 – Determine the data architecture of the core system currently being used to define cost centre’s and other organization types and use it to determine existing data linkages from the core system to other tools or systems that make use of this information.