Harmless junk, pile of cash, or dangerous legal and environmental exposure?
Your IT equipment ages while new technologies and performance features are introduced to the marketplace. As an IT or Data Center Manager, you are faced with how to effectively manage these end-of-life (EOL) assets. There is inherent or assumed value in used equipment because of marketplaces like eBay and Amazon or outdated, misperceived values of e-waste scrap. Either way, many business managers are too quickly focused on getting cash from selling their used equipment and may be misled into thinking that value equates to the cash delivered at the close of the deal. For the actual payback, you need to consider the real costs to your company and associated opportunity costs, not just the cash delivered at disposition.
Cash for Used Equipment
According to Acumen Research Consulting, “The global IT asset disposition (ITAD) market size is anticipated to [be] around USD 22,150.4 million by 2026, this market is anticipated to grow with 6.9 CAGR during the forecast time period. The increase in IT waste disposal is one of the factors that is expected to drive the growth of the global IT asset disposition (ITAD) market.”
There are businesses out there that will pay cash for your functioning used equipment. But the typical scenario is this: A buyer is willing to pay market value for only a specific piece of equipment, but they’re not interested in the rest of your aged, low (or no-value) electronic assets. This creates a dilemma for how to dispose of the rest of your EOL assets. Essentially, these are electronic waste (e-waste) and there are complexities involved in their safe, secure and compliant disposal.
For your remaining used IT assets not readily sold by you or a broker, you will discover that you need to work with an e-waste provider or an ITAD professional to dispose of them safely and securely. Unfortunately, at this stage, you have lost all previous leverage to reduce the remaining “recycling” costs. This means your company will most likely need to go through yet another vetting/RFP process for the remaining e-waste, thereby extending the time of capturing asset value and adding further internal costs. The net result is a significant reduction in the actual return on your total equipment disposition if any.
Consider your options.
- The E-waste Recycler will typically charge for removing everything but make you do all the work required for the necessary sorting of materials.
- The ITAD Professional will do all the work, provide Value Recovery and credit it to the bill. The client doesn’t have to do much or any work at all.
- The Used Equipment Broker will do none of the manual work, will not handle the recycling and is only interested in “the cream of the crop” higher-value equipment.
Assess the Big Picture
As part of your IT or Data Center EOL planning, think about the true value/cost equation and whether you want to pursue this on your own. There are quite a few “strings” attached to successfully retiring your IT assets. Are you prepared to do what it takes? It includes:
- Capture/prepare all the financial details in a meaningful and organized manner
- Market the equipment to prospective buyers
- Negotiate price, terms and conditions for the sale or manage the bid process
- Administer the transaction – Purchase and Sale Agreement, transfer of ownership document, Purchase Order, invoice, receipt/deposit of funds, and associated financial transactions
- Pack and ship the equipment
- Manage shipping/freight issues including in-transit damages, lost packages or re-directs
- Manage Customer Service issues such as :
- Unsatisfied buyers due to “items not as described” for cosmetic, functional or misrepresented specifications.
- Returns/Refunds/Replacements
- Potential for a lawsuit in high-value transactions
To capture a cash return on these assets, you will have to manage these tasks and more. Should you do all this yourself or stick to running your business and work with an expert in IT asset disposition?
Working with an ITAD Expert
An ITAD services professional specializes in helping you identify the best solution to streamlining your IT and Data Center End-of-Life process. Castaway Technologies provides ITAD services to medium and large enterprise 
companies, working closely with key business stakeholders, including CEO, CIO, Data Protection Officers and upper-level IT managers.
Our goal is to help businesses and institutions safely and securely mitigate the risks involved with the turnover of data-bearing IT assets so they can focus on what really matters – running their business and serving customers.
While most companies pay attention to the operational phases of the IT lifecycle, Castaway works with businesses and organizations to streamline the end of their IT lifecycle processes. We offer white glove, managed IT Asset Disposition (MiTAD) services for the proper protection, handling and disposal of IT assets as well as miscellaneous electronic equipment and devices. You might say we bring happy endings to your hard-working but tired and worn older equipment.
We work the way you prefer by offering both on-site and off-site data sanitization, shredding and removal solutions. Whether being processed at your facilities or ours, your used electronics will be in safe hands and all the data will be completely gone or off limits to potential theft.
Proudly Professional
Castaway specializes in compliant IT, Data Center and electronics asset disposition services performed by our select team of drivers and technicians. These accomplished professionals provide customized services to help our clients mitigate legal, financial and reputational risk. For your peace of mind, all of our employees must undergo rigorous criminal background checks, drug screening and previous employment verifications.
To learn more about how to optimize the total lifecycle value of your electronics, contact one of our ITAD professionals at (978) 208-4730.
