Where have all the good analysts gone?

Since setting up shop 4 years ago we have been inundated with clients looking for analysts. Data Analysts, Insight Analysts, Marketing Analysts you name it. The trouble is we can't find any and believe me we have tried. We looked under rocks, in dark cellars, behind the sofa but nay an analyst to be found. Which begs the question where are they? Sunning themselves on their private yachts supping champagne whilst moored off Antigua by the sounds of it. The clever ones that is. The ones who realised that the direct marketing industry relied on their skills more than ever but did little to attract and retain the brightest analytical stars with good salaries and instead kept them chained to their desks next to the IT dept in the windowless office. In a word the CONTRACTORS. Any decent analyst who can tell his/her chaid from regression, who knows there is more to modelling than Air fix planes and can single handedly make or break a marketing campaign by putting the decimal point in the right place has gone contracting. And I say good luck to them. We are fighting a constant battle with our clients over salaries for analysts – why shouldn’t marketing analysts and their ilk with in demand skills sets demand higher salaries? They should in my opinion and we are continually advising clients that to secure good people they have to look at paying more, the message is still not getting through which is why 80% of our analysts are contracting at day rates that even a super model would get out of bed for. Surely an industry that sells itself on being able to quantify marketing spend can see that good analysis can add 100s of thousands of pounds to the bottom line, the ones doing that should be rewarded for doing so. As an industry we have to wake up to this or we will stagnate when there is so much opportunity for growth.

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