A mahout takes care of the elephant in your organization
Once upon a time... there was an Indian king who traveled through his country on the back of an elephant. One day he arrived at the village of the blind. The blind villagers had never seen an elephant before and were extremely curious as to what an elephant was. A few daredevils approached the elephant. The first bumped a leg, the second was struck by the tail and the third was startled when the trunk wrapped around his arm....
Back with the other villagers, they quarreled: They could not agree, is an elephant a tree stump, a whip or a snake?
The elephant as metaphor for a data-driven organization
We love this parable because we think it’s a powerful metaphor for the data challenges that organizations face. Take marketers who find it difficult to work with an analytics team because it always comes up with a hugely complex solution to a simple problem. Take data scientists who create high-end models that give good predictions, but get frustrated that nothing is ever done with them in the business. Or take business analysts who no longer know where to get their input because there has been an enormous proliferation of dashboards. Each of them is experiencing a seemingly different problem, but actually these are all different perspectives of the same problem.
Only when you combine all those perspectives do you see the big picture: the elephant. That’s why we named our company Mahout. A Mahout is an elephant caretaker and trainer. Mahouts come from communities with generations of experience in elephant keeping and stay connected to their elephants throughout their lives.
Our ambition? To become the go-to expert in making organizations data-driven
Esther Lietaert Peerbolte
Data Strategist
Introduction round
So who are we? We are Esther, Viola and Steven: three data lovers who have been working in data consulting for many years (30 in total). And with pleasure! We have extensive hands-on experience in data engineering, business intelligence and data science and enjoy learning new skills. Over the years, however, we have also learned that it takes much more than just technical skills for organizations to unlock the full potential of their data.
This led us to broaden our focus from building smart data solutions to integrating all data, organizational and human aspects. That’s how we help organizations become truly data-driven: from the initial visionary dream to actual execution. Always with people at the core.
Curious to find out what we can do for you?
