Communication in Governance and Stewardship

Communication in Governance and Stewardship

Communication in Governance and Stewardship

Mid-Town Markets is a small (3 shops), family owned grocery chain located in the Bootheel area of Missouri. The Markets carry basic groceries and house a small pharmacy. The organizational structure is very simple: there are 3 siblings, and each has a specialty area. George manages the grocery portion of the business. Chris is a pharmacist and manages the pharmacy side of the operation. Kathy has a degree in IT and oversees all the data.

The pharmacy business was added last year, but the grocery side has been in the family for 20 years. Kathy’s goal is to standardize the way data is handles, so that both side of the business are the same.

Organizing Business Data

There are 3 main ways that data, and the people who analyze it, can be organized. The different approaches can be beneficial to businesses.

A Distributed Approach

In a distributed approach, a department or business unit head hires the analyst to address local needs and issues. This is ideal for the business head and departmental managers who get immediate and direct access to an analyst. The presence of one or more analysts helps foster a culture of fact-based decision making.

However, in the distributed approach, business analysts often become a surrogate data mart for the department. They get bogged down creating low-value, ad hoc reports instead of conducting more strategic analyses. If the business analyst is highly efficient, the department head often doesn't see the need to invest in a legitimate, enterprise decision-making infrastructure. Analysts often feel pigeonholed in a distributed approach.

A Centralized Approach

In a centralized approach, business analysts are housed centrally and managed as a shared service under the control of a director of analytics or, more likely, a chief financial officer or director of information management. One benefit of this approach is...