disagree completely with this.
I view scientists, engineers, programmers, and system administrators as a part of the profit center because they are intrinsically tied to value creation and value amplification.
Its a perfectly sensible view. unfortunately not one shared by your typical bean counter. MBAs routinely buy out companies and gut the value creation parts to increase valuation for short term gain before pawing off the hollowed out shell to the next owner. its sick but widespread.
For software companies, sure! Unless you're in DevOps or DevTools then you're a cost center again.
For an insurance company or restaurant, not as much. It depends on where the flow of money is.
Things are changing though, so this is less true over time as software continues to eat the world.
Conversely, they also tend to believe their value calculations are better than those of dev teams, going as far as to ignore proposals. You think MBAs are able to consistently guess better than someone actively doing the work?
well, you're not a MBA or a decision maker so your input here is mute. People are the means of production for a technology company and people cost money. This isn't complicated. And make no mistake, great measures are taken to minimize costs.
Whether you label something a profit center or cost center is irrelevant to the authors point. The significance of the conclusion remains true regardless of the label used.