Marketing Research & Analysis Team Accessions Command
Many people I meet ask me what I do and I have difficulty sometimes describing my current field and duties. So let me try to break down each word and relate it to my duties now and in the past. OPERATIONS is the most important word in the 4-block acronym, in that all we do I must relate it to current or future operations, put it in the context of the warfighter and the recommended actions that I am proposing so he/she can make a decision. There are many academic exercises that I do but I must address the “So what” and related to our operations or the meaning is lost. The one think that will happen with an ORSA analysis product is a leader (decision maker) will make a decision or a group of decisions related to our work. Some of the decisions adjust resources, adjust policies, and modify how we conduct business (recruit, fight, etc.), what we are equipped with or how to improve friction points within a system to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Sometimes the impact is immediate as in my current job with Accessions Command. I am the Marketing Research and Analysis Division Chief and the analysts in the division are responsible for research and analysis critical for recruiting enlisted and officers in the US Army. Key questions come up daily on how should we spend a dollar of marketing and on who, when and using what advertising media. The environment is very fluid because it involves people and the human dimension. Hard to keep up with the environment. In my world, I always say to my analysts, as I look out my window we need to answer these questions: 1) who is out there, 2) how far are they away are they (age), 3) how much information do they know about Army service, 4) how should I engage them and how do they receive information, 5) are they already very interested in Army service where marketing will have very little effect on them and 6) how eligible for service are they.

RESEARCH is the long-range actions of this specialty to either conduct, coordinate, lead or synergize projects to effectively in the near-term address the commanders’ questions and attempt to underpin critical decisions. If RESEARCH is the long-term then ANALYSIS is the short-term that takes the research and discretely and collectively packages a composite product that looks at the problem from multiple angles, venues and with multiple stakeholders then compensates for the constraints and limitations of the research and forms a set of recommendations that address the problem.

The SYSTEMS portion is what makes the ORSA community a little different than most other staff Officers. When we see a problem, we see a system of systems in which the problem is contained. We see flow, path and methodology which typically connect on multiple layers. Everything is part of a system and each system is part of a larger system. We would like to understand how it fits into the larger construct and the interdependencies so we can describe the impacts of our recommendations to the decision maker and provide synergistic problem solving (two or more birds, one stone concept).

Lastly, ANALYST is the descriptor that brings it all together by conducting analysis which mentioned before is the looking at the big picture by looking at adjacent activities, looking at the entire system and the effects of the decision on sub-systems, people and the organization and looking spatial and temporal considerations (actions down the road).

ORSA as a specialty has been around since World War II where it was born and the original ORSAs had to solve very difficult problems ranging from protecting aircraft, getting troops on shores, improving communication effectiveness and even solving enemy cryptographic ciphers. The ORSA community has since been militarized and imbedded in organizational staffs at the Corps, Divisions and Brigade levels to provide the commander the problem-solving capabilities necessary to be responsiveness and address critical combat related issues. Along with a set of civilian counter parts at the strategic and operational levels, the ORSA community makes an impact everyday at every level of the Army. The appetite for analysis has grown substantially in the last 5 years. Research and analysis drives decisions; data drives research an analysis ? ORSAs have the unique skills to produce the data, research and analysis. ORSA skills and tools have been refined over the past 50 years and each problem requires different skill and tools.

ORSA as a functionality for Officers may be assigned as a Captain but as branch identifier will be assigned as a Major. I was originally a Signal Officer and re-classed as an ORSA, which is functional area 49, as it is called. ORSAs are a small branch and managed with other operational branches such as Signal and Military Intelligence, all which provide operational support to the commander. The skills of ORSAs are so desired by commanders and staffs that recent force manpower requirements have assigned them to almost every level in the Army. My previous ORSA job was working on the 2017 Future Force concept from White Sands Missile Range as an analyst with projects ranging from munition composition, communication capability assessment, tactical procedures employment assessment and asset configuration evaluation for a force that doesn’t exist yet. However, the analysis allowed for these future concepts to be spun-out to the current force in Iraq to increase the efficiency, effectiveness and protection of current operations. My wife, also an ORSA, worked convoy procedures and weapon configurations while traveling, which increased the overall survivability and lethality of a convoy as these convoys were typically attacked because of their vulnerabilities.