However, it also tends to devalue the work invested by the analysts. They are doing the work for essentially a lottery ticket -- winner take all. That's the reason that it can be so cost effective to the company running the competition -- they don't absorb the costs of the failures (or less optimal approaches).
Those costs have to be absorbed by someone. In this model, they are eaten by the analysts, who (generally) don't have enough resources to cover those costs. Due to that, I don't think this model is sustainable or will really catch on.
OTOH, in some (ideal) academic endeavors, having multiple groups compete for more funding or for a prize has certainly benefitted the sciences. In that case, however, the competition was more friendly than zero sum. Also, I believe the different sides tend to share information more than hoard it, yielding lessons learned to the entire group from one team's failures.