# Companies using "Analyst Pools"



## JMH022 (Jun 6, 2007)

Does anyone have any examples of companies who are using a functional organizational structure?

I want to know if grouping all of my analysts into a single department is more feasible than having them sprinkled throughout the company. In theory, other departments (Tax/Accounting, Compensation, A/R, Operations, etc.) could come to "The Analyst Department" for whatever analysis they needed.

Any input/opinion?


----------



## Oaktree (Jun 6, 2007)

Personally, I think that's a bad idea.  From the analyst's perspective, s/he would have limited exposure to the various experiences that are invaluable to gaining expertise.  Putting numbers on the page is the easy part of analytics; the tough part is understanding enough about the *business*  to anticipate questions, possible oversights, pitfalls, best practices, etc.  Separating the analysts from those types of learnings that come from being immersed in the team could hinder the analyst's professional development.  After all, you'd rather promote someone to a manager role if s/he has already seen how the different functions interact with each other (e.g. been in a meeting where marketing and sales are duking it out) than if s/he knows how to create marking reports for marketing managers and sales reports for sales managers.  

And, from the department's perspective, you don't want to have "report monkeys" where people who aren't on the team are developing reports.  The main reason for this is that a lot of things are learned in the *process* of making reports.  It's valuable to have to think through the approach and model design, 'cause it helps you realize things you might have otherwise overlooked.  If you can just go to your report monkey, you'll still see the results (probably faster), but you won't see the process.

I think it's a good idea to *seat* analysts close to each other (so if an analyst has a technical question, s/he can leverage the knowledge of the other analysts who likely do similar work), but my opinion is that it's better to keep the structure based on cross-functional teams.


----------



## SydneyGeek (Jun 7, 2007)

I'll second Oaktree on that. 

Analysts lose their relevance when you maove them out of functional teams and dump them in another room somewhere. By all means, set up ways for the analysts to interact because they can work informally as resources for each other, but don't divorce them from the business. 

To give an example, I reckon it works for any specialist function including IT. About a decade ago, some Aussie bureaucrat had the smart idea to take the specialst IT people out of the CSIRO divisions and centralise the whole thing. (CSIRO is Australia's biggest science organisation, with sites all over the country). After all, IT is IT, right? CSIRO fought hard, pointing out that most of the value they got from their IT managers was the combined knowledge of IT and science that many of them brought to the table. 

CSIRO lost the fight -- sort of. The government tried it with a couple of divisions, intending a phased rollout. Without having the context and the training, the new IT guys were a lot less effective. Once the howls from the affected divisions reached a high enough volume the government backed down. 

My 2 cents...

Denis


----------



## ExcelChampion (Jun 7, 2007)

Sounds like you want report writers rather than analysts..


----------



## JMH022 (Jun 7, 2007)

Thank you all for your input. I wanted to see if anyone else out there felt the same way I did when I first heard this idea "floated" at an exec meeting.

I am still looking for other hard examples where this was tried and failed (or where it _might _have succeeded). If anyone has some thoughts, I sure could use them.

Thanks again!


----------



## steve case (Jun 7, 2007)

My soapbox speech on the topic is that IT departments ought to have a report writer/trainer position.  The more he trains people the fewer reports he has to produce.


----------



## Norie (Jun 8, 2007)

Jim

Don't most companies have a 'functional organizational structure'?

Or they wouldn't function?

PS I'm not saying that they have efficient or effective structures.

And I might have missed your specific point.


----------



## JMH022 (Jun 8, 2007)

I was referring to the "textbook" definition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_structure


----------



## ExcelChampion (Jun 8, 2007)

To reiterate some points, I believe it is best that analysts belong to the department that they are qualified to analyze (accounting, ie pricing structires; marketing, ie market size/growth; purchasing/inventory, etc).  But if you want more broad reporting, then usually IT has a report writer/business analyst that fulfills the more common number crunching that doesn't require "analysis", such as, "I need how many shipments we made this month out of wherehouse B for product line X.)


----------



## ExcelChampion (Jun 8, 2007)

To reiterate some points, I believe it is best that analysts belong to the department that they are qualified to analyze (accounting, ie pricing structires; marketing, ie market size/growth; purchasing/inventory, etc).  But if you want more broad reporting, then usually IT has a report writer/business analyst that fulfills the more common number crunching that doesn't require "analysis", such as, "I need how many shipments we made this month out of warehouse B for product line X.)


----------



## ExcelChampion (Jun 8, 2007)

To reiterate some points, I believe it is best that analysts belong to the department that they are qualified to analyze (accounting, ie pricing structures; marketing, ie market size/growth; purchasing/inventory, etc).  But if you want more broad reporting, then usually IT has a report writer/business analyst that fulfills the more common number crunching that doesn't require "analysis", such as, "I need how many shipments we made this month out of warehouse B for product line X.)


----------



## JMH022 (Jun 8, 2007)

Todd:

Thanks for your input on this!


----------

