After The Storm: New Orleans VAR Is Reborn Stronger Than Ever

Jim Perrier, president of Universal Data, a New Orleans-based solution provider, successfully piloted his solution provider business through the havoc wrought by Hurricane Katrina and now, three and a half years later, he says he applies those same lessons to dealing with the current economic downturn.

"My father told me a long time ago and I live by this: 'For those things that you can do something about, you do something about. Those things that you can't, you don't worry about. Move on,' " said Perrier, whose business has now surpassed its pre-Katrina levels to become the premier disaster recovery and enterprise VMware solution provider in the Greater New Orleans area.

"You have got to work with what you have. Make decisions with what you have and move forward. I think if you have the right attitude and make good decisions, you'll be fine. Focus on the business and focus on the things that you think you can do well with," Perrier said.

Perrier knows of what he speaks. When Katrina hit, his business was losing money coming out of the dot-com bust and was down to 11 employees from a high of 25. Perrier and his employees hunkered down and refused to be busted by Katrina. And what was a $1.5 million business before the storm is now a $4.1 million business with 20 employees.

Perrier has prospered by building thriving solution practices centered around disaster recovery and remote virtualization. Before Katrina the amount of business from those practices was negligible, said Perrier. Today they make up about 70 percent of his business, while services now accounts for about half of his revenue.

Universal Data invested in the right technologies with the right vendor partners, Perrier said. "We've stepped up with key players," he added, pointing to VMware, EMC, Cisco and Microsoft as being instrumental to his success.

One Universal Data customer that had relied heavily on its inside IT department before the storm found itself abandoned by its top IT executive after the hurricane. The solution provider stepped in and built a world-class disaster recovery solution. "Today we are their IT department," said Perrier.

That Universal Data solution was tested last year when New Orleans was evacuated due to Hurricane Gustav. The customer's systems remained up and running and its employees could work remotely despite the storm. "Everything worked fine," said Perrier. "The client called every day for three straight days asking: 'Are we still OK? Are we still OK?' And it worked fine. They didn't miss a beat because of the way we set them up."

Perrier says in the aftermath of the Katrina disaster more businesses are "paying attention to the fact that things can go wrong and you can lose information. And you lose business. During the hurricane, everyone was worried about protecting their computers. But it is the information that counts. I think the rest of the country is catching on to that."

Perrier isn't letting the current economic downturn get him down. In fact, he isn't seeing a fall-out from the recession. "I think that Louisiania and New Orleans are an anomaly because we got hit so hard by Katrina," he said. "People have been coming back and putting money into this economy. We have not been hit like the rest of the country. It doesn't mean we won't be because the banks still have to loan."

Perrier survived his economic collapse and came out stronger. Now he's optimistic and is planning for more growth, despite the macroeconomic woes. Last October, he hired a new business development manager, Rhonda Ladner, to drive new opportunities.

"Right now I am excited about the place we are and where we can go from here," said Perrier. "We have a lot of possibilities." A lot of possibilities that are being created by a chief executive and a team of employees that won't be deterred by either natural or economic storms. It's an outlook that business and government leaders fretting about the recession would be wise to follow.