On a mission to help clients excel by expertly applying and managing information technology: Bellwether Technology

Open for business since 1980, Bellwether Technology strives to offer the best IT services to businesses and organizations in Louisiana and the Gulf South. Locally owned and operated in New Orleans, Bellwether has a combination of experience and resources that is unmatched in the area.

Its main office and primary network operations center are located in the heart of the New Orleans Central Business District in the Federal Reserve Bank building at the corner of St. Charles Avenue and Poydras Street. Our satellite office in Madisonville, LA, helps us to offer clients on the rapidly expanding north shore of Lake Pontchartrain the high level of service that our south shore clients have come to expect.

Today, Bellwether serves over 250 clients throughout New Orleans and the surrounding area. Its clients consist of businesses and organizations of all types and sizes, covering a wide variety of industries, including Architecture, Construction, Education, Engineering, Financial, Government Agencies, Healthcare, Hospitality, Industrial/Manufacturing, Legal, Media, and Non-Profit.

‘In all cases, our goal is to ensure your success,’ the executives say Managed IT Services for businesses

Are you tired of paying for employee downtime? Tired of paying ridiculous hourly fees to an “IT guy” who works on his own schedule? We are here to help.

With activenet, you deal with an affordable monthly fee, allowing you to control your budget, and we deal with the rest. Our main goal with our activenet managed IT services is to prevent any problems from ever occurring in your systems and network. Rather than patch any holes, we strive to prevent those holes from ever forming.

We recommend the most valuable mainstream solutions, but we don’t look for the newest, most expensive, or cheapest option; instead, we look for the option that makes the most financial and technical sense in conjunction with your business’s needs and goals.

Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth

Activenet Cloud is for businesses that are either already in the cloud or willing to make a move to the cloud. Whether your business uses a third-party cloud provider or is in the cloud through Bellwether, your business will get the same quality support as our traditional clients that are not in the cloud.

With activenet cloud, your organization will have its own virtual IT department, giving you the reassurance and peace of mind that your IT systems and sensitive data are in the hands of proven cloud experts.

Disaster Recovery Plans that really work

Considering our location on a map, the need for proper disaster recovery planning in New Orleans and southeastern Louisiana is beyond question. At Bellwether, we have helped clients of all types and sizes develop, test, and implement business continuity plans. Whether you need to be up and running in one minute, one day, or one week, we have a proven, appropriate remote backup solution.

Here to help you excel

Our team of 22 systems engineers with over 200 years of combined experience is at your disposal. We hold current certifications from Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, HP, and other providers; and we apply our expertise in real world situations every day.

Whether you are looking for a little extra help with a single project or looking to outsource IT services indefinitely, chances are that we have done it before and can do it for you. We can work side by side with your team at your direction or we can manage the entire engagement from design to implementation to support.

Business process improvement. Better business analytics.

Bellwether Advisory Services helps our clients operate more efficiently and make better decisions by making better use of their data. We help our clients make better use of their data through our expertise in Microsoft Power BI. Using Power

BI, we:

-Enable automated report generation to stop spreadsheet sprawl.

-Build interactive, drillable visuals to enable data exploration.

-Deliver segmented reporting, so that users see only what they need.

The Happy Customers

Johnson Rice & Company L.L.C.

Background: Johnson Rice & Company L.L.C. was founded in 1987 as an institutional research and sales firm. The investment banking department was added in 1991 and has been involved in over $14 billion in capital transactions. Located in New Orleans, LA, Johnson Rice focuses on a limited number of industries in order to provide superior, value-added services to its institutional and corporate clients. The firm is nationally recognized for its expansive coverage of the energy industry and also has a strong consumer focus with coverage of specialty retailer companies.

Challenge: The nature of their business requires that Johnson Rice has a thorough, workable business continuity plan. The fact that they are based in New Orleans adds to the urgency of the plan and the likelihood that it will be implemented. From an IT standpoint, Johnson Rice needs uninterrupted access to files, email, instant messaging, and various financial platforms whenever the market is open.

Solution: Bellwether worked with Johnson Rice to craft a disaster recovery plan for their IT systems that is designed to preserve access to all systems in the event of a complete loss of their New Orleans office. In addition, Bellwether identified remote office space and other resources for Johnson Rice’s trading desk to use in the event of an evacuation of the New Orleans area.

Return: In September 2008, Hurricane Gustav provided a real-life test of Johnson Rice’s business continuity plan, and all aspects worked as intended. When the market opened following a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, Johnson Rice’s traders were up and working productively in a temporary office, and other personnel had complete access to corporate data with the full support of Bellwether’s service desk.

Gieger, Laborde & Laperouse, L.L.C. Background: Gieger, Laborde & Laperouse is a New Orleans-based law firm with over thirty attorneys. Started in 1991 by a close group of skilled, experienced trial attorneys, GLL has a reputation second to none among firms in the New Orleans area.

Challenge: As a growing, progressive firm, Gieger, Laborde & Laperouse eventually reached the point that traditional, reactive IT support was not able to keep up adequately with the firm’s demands. As their IT systems became more

sophisticated and more heavily used, GLL found that they were encountering more problems, that those problems had more impact on the firm’s operations, and that they often took unreasonably long to resolve. GLL faced the question of whether to hire an experienced IT person in house or develop a closer relationship with a third party provider.

Solution: Bellwether recommended, and eventually implemented, our activenet complete managed service offering, under which we fulfill all the roles of an enterprise IT department for a fixed monthly fee. Rather than reacting to problems that occur, we take control of all IT systems and implement software tools and best practices to ensure that they operate reliably and correctly. GLL’s employees can call our service desk 24/7 for immediate help with any issues that arise.

Return: Compared to hiring an internal IT administrator, GLL found that activenet complete represents significant cost savings and offers a breadth and depth of expertise that a single IT person could never match.

Meet the Management

Poco Sloss, President: “Poco” is the co-founder of Bellwether Technology. A Georgia Tech graduate, Poco is also a member of numerous Boards of Directors. Most notably, Poco has served on the New Orleans City Planning Commission, the Metropolitan Crime Commission, and the Bureau of Governmental Research. Poco resides Uptown with his family.

Steven Ellis, Vice President: A New Orleans native, Steven has a B.A. in Mathematics from Williams College in Williamstown, MA, and a MBA in Finance from Tulane University Freeman School of Business. Steven has been with Bellwether for fifteen years. He lives uptown with his wife, Sabine, and daughters, Sophie and Audrey.

“We offer our clients a comprehensive IT department tailored to fit their individual priorities.”