It is clear that a major change in hierarchical power was implied by the new information system. Power would shift from the divisions and their accountants to headquarters and the corporate accounting staff. Prior to this, divisions had retained control of their own data and exercised substantial discretion in summarizing it. This allowed them to account for unusual situations before reports reached corporate accountants or even divisional general managers. After this, all data were in a single database under the control of corporate accountants
