Data mining and the real "work"

Associate 3 here (ignore my title) at an MM in a lean coverage team. Occasionally I am still soloing some company profiles or industry benchmarking analysis.

And it is just soul sucking to do these over and over again. Like finding 10 -15companies (including private co) to benchmark random stuff like number of stores, breakdown of countries by revenue / stores, gross margin, product mix, etc.

As an associate I feel like I am just doing company profiles and data mining non-stop and there is limited analytical stuff (model is not very analytical but rather mechanical and disgusting as well, but let's put it aside here).

I wonder if we are paid to offer "advice" to clients or paid to do a data book. Sometimes I just think my role is unnecessary and we should hire a bunch of ex-politicians or private bankers or consultants who can schmooze with the clients. They can hire a bunch of offshore "data researchers" to create the company profiles or benchmarking analysis at 1/10 of the cost. CFO is driving the strategic decision anyway with all sell-side deals having 10 banks pitching every time. Most of the times the mandated bank is not even giving them any creative idea but rather just relaying what everybody knows and win it with institutional relationship or strong sector credentials.