What is an Industry Analyst?
If you have been to any gaming website over the last few weeks, you will have noticed a veritable ton of articles about one gaming industry analyst Micheal Pachter. While it would be easy to focus on one industry analyst, no matter how prolific, it would be like kicking a gamer after he lost the final battle. What exactly IS an industry analyst and why do so many sites try and cover them as actual news resources?
An industry analyst performs research on whatever his particular field of interest is. In terms of Michael, that would be gaming, but he is far from the only gaming analyst, or for that matter nerdy analyst. An Analysts primary job is to determine the state of the market that they are specializing in and recognizing trends within that market. If the Wii is selling well to casual gamers, or if Green Lantern is doing well with post-adolescents, that is a trend in their respective industries. They focus on the “big picture” of the industry, which means the big news items. For gaming, it would be price drops for consoles, for comics it would be iconic characters getting a reboot, and for tech it would be the latest in cell phone technology. So an analyst captures the marketing trends, interprets the latest business models and forecasts what this means to the person they are representing. Essentially giving their various customers the inside scoop on whatever specialty they have.
This is a relatively beneficial idea. Basically, they are trying to get their customers an edge. Another function of an analyst is to 
analyze what is going on in their respective industry, and advise the actual industry on how well they are doing. If Supersquad action figures is selling well and its targeting a younger audience, an analyst might advise Marvel to target more people in that demographic. Hence we get a large number of new things focusing on THAT perspective. Which is why we see Marvel’s Superhero Squad online game and cartoon series aiming at the same sort of audience.
Everyone has analysts, because an analyst is someone who communicates your vision to a broader base of people. Its similar to a presidential campaign where you see polls showing how the candidate is trending with the public on a variety of issues. The problem that analysts face in terms of the mainstream public is akin to a presidential scandal with lobbyists. Analysts work for companies and show how that company can take the current trends and make money off of them, but this also gives analysts a bias for that company. There is a matter of trust on whether an analyst is trying to subtly push a customer to a certain direction with their analysis. Its essentially a persuasive essay without telling you that they are trying to persuade you. Because of the co-dependent relationship between industry analysts and product vendors, we might never know who is sleeping with whom.
An Industry Analyst is a resource we all use, and they have a place in our society. The issues arise when we are not sure exactly WHO the analyst is servicing. Are they offering their latest opinion, and trying to guide the customer to the right direction, or are they trying to railroad the customer into going with the company they represent? IBM, for example, does not disclose how much they invest in industry analysts. The thing to remember is to do your research when buying or reading the news, and don’t blindly trust analysts without researching who they represent.
2 Responses to “What is an Industry Analyst?”
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I need less weather predictions and more hard facts and news. For me an analyst only can further fanboy dreams and can upset a market with false hope.
Pretty much what Josh said, with all these predictions of a PS3 Price Drop and so forth, you can see the sells for PS3 almost coming to a halt because of people who are sitting, waiting patiently.