Wowem Corporation manufactures a wide range of clothing apparel. It is a decentralized organization in which different divisions have responsibility for the manufacture and distribution of major product lines-sporting apparel, leisure wear, country-and-western gear, maternity wear, industrial clothing, uniforms, evening wear, and so on. Each division has several line and staff departments: design, purchasing, production, marketing, accounting, information systems, and so on. In addition, Wowem has several corporate departments that undertake overall planning and control functions and provide staff assistance to divisions. A small corporate information systems department exists. It supports corporate information systems, develops and promulgates companywide information systems standards, and provides consulting advice to divisions.

In line with its decentralized operations, Wowem operates a responsibility accounting system that allows top management to track the performance of different divisions and departments and to cost the products that Wowem manufactures. All divisions have used a common database management system to implement the responsibility accounting system. Providing the divisions comply with corporate information requirements for the responsibility accounting system, however, the design, implementation, maintenance, and operation of the system has been and continues to be the prerogative of the divisions.

Over the past five years, Wowem has suffered a major decline in profitability. In light of the difficulties that have arisen, the old company president has resigned, and a new one has been appointed. In an effort to revitalize the company, she decides to undertake an extensive reorganization of the company. The changes include elimination of some divisions, reallocation of products to different divisions, migration of some staff functions to corporate headquarters, and extensive downsizing of personnel who work in a staff capacity. Because of Wowem's precarious financial position, she indicates she wishes to put these changes in place quickly. Moreover, she underscores the need to modify the responsibility accounting system urgently to reflect the new responsibility structure. She sees the responsibility accounting systems as being critical to her monitoring the success of the changes and to taking timely action if problems arise.

Required. Wowem's corporate data administrator has been made responsible for preparing an overall plan to redefine the corporate and divisional databases to reflect the new lines of responsibility. As the manager of internal audit for Wowem, the company president has asked you to review and evaluate the plan prepared by the data administrator. Given the intense scrutiny that Wowem is under from its shareholders and its external auditor, she is particularly concerned that the accounting changes be made accurately and completely. At the same time, she is concerned to see that the changes are implemented as smoothly as possible. Make a list of the major items you think should exist in the plan if data integrity is to be preserved during the redefinition process.