What Should be the Analytics Organization Structure?

What are the advantages and disadvantage of different structures

Analytics organizations tend to be set up in very different ways depending on the specific companies that set them up, be it in terms of reporting lines, segmented or central teams, or in terms of overall focus (project vs. product/business based). Each of these attributes brings its own set of tradeoffs that need to be understood and managed.

Reporting Line

Over the years as an analytics professional, I had the chance to work in a variety of industries and businesses. Sometimes analytics was placed under business or products, other time finance, and sometimes technology. Amazon for instance tended to place analytics and business intelligence under Finance while the data engineering was placed under the technology department, while at Facebook there was a central analytics team with sub-segments detached to the different product pillars.

The reporting lines dictate to a large extent the priorities that end up being set forth on the analytics team. Finance having a focus on control, product a focus on prioritization and business cases and technology on building data-flows.