Creation
In 2009, 3 colleagues at the company (at the time known as) Atos Origin decided to make the leap. By then, as unit managers, they had experienced for several years that giving space, connecting, creating a team, sharing knowledge, focusing on personal development and, above all, having fun was the way to success. These elements formed the image of the most fun and future-proof company to work for. In 2010 the foundation was a fact and at this moment we are with about 40 colleagues, are fully focused on Business Analysis and have fun together!
Colleagues?
Part of the vision is that we believe you are stronger together. Terms like "personnel" and "employees" suggest a hierarchy and no cooperation / synergy. That's why we call everyone who works at Entrador "Colleague" (although in legal terms you don't always avoid using the term employee). In practice, this means a flat organization without a middle management layer and staff departments.
The name and logo
Regularly we get the question where the name "Entrador" comes from and what the logo stands for. In the search for a name we made a list with hundreds of names. After that we filtered on names that were still available in the Chamber of Commerce and for which the URL was still available. The result was Entrador. Later the name turned out to mean "sympathetic" and "accessible" in South American. These were associations we could agree with.
At Atos Origin we called our unit the castle. This was a metaphor for a safe place where, through the large gate, everyone could enter and leave of their own free will. The thick walls were the protection against possible trouble from the outside. The most beautiful castles are castles with crazy towers on them. These towers stand for individual development. Everyone is free to build their own tower as long as it had a connection with the castle (read: a relevant development in the field).
Focus and projects
In the early years of Entrador, in addition to Business Analysis, we also embraced the Executive Support (a kind of project officer at Executive level) and the Project and Program Management discipline. In practice it turned out that this gave a diffuse picture of what we as an organization stood for and what we were really good at. Later on, we focused entirely on Business Analysis, which makes us very recognizable now. There is no doubt that if you are offered a candidate from Entrador, it is a well-trained Business Analyst.
Considering the focus on Business Analysis, the domain where we do projects is less relevant. Because of this, our customer portfolio is very diverse and our colleagues can gain experience in all sectors. Together with our partners we have access to most major clients in the Netherlands. The focus is on (central) government, finance and retail.