This scenario also came to mind for me as I read the article. I always wanted an analytical approach to quantify the extent to which sales could be attributed to fluctuations in weather. The data exists. On many weekends, we'd even have good weather in one geography and bad weather in another to create a sort of holdout group and measure weather-related lift. Has anyone done this? When IBM bought both The Weather Company and Coremetrics, I thought we could expect an offering like this. Then I joined IBM and was distracted by other "urgent" projects and never got this concept off the ground. Still seems like a worthwhile product.

"You were supposed to be the chosen one!" shouted Obi-wan Kenobi to Anakin Skywalker on the banks of a river of lava at the end of one of the Star Wars movies. Retail business leaders could say the same to their Analytics colleagues. Expectations are high when they allocated budget for headcount and technology to become data driven. Effort, then frustration and disappointment follows. But unlike Anakin, all is not lost. Counter to the assumption expressed in the HBR article, if "organ withdrawal" exists, it isn't only the fault of the analyst. Yes, analytics practitioners can do more to learn the language and culture of retail, but retail leaders also would do well to lean into the opportunity to better understand the analytics function. This is best accomplished through mutual transparency and a joint effort to create a culture of passion, persistence, integrity and respect. Don't give up. There is still good in this partnership.