Top Five Best Practices for your Redundant IT Assets

According to Gartner Research, the average lifespan of a desktop PC is 43 months, and 36 months for mobile PCs. The consequence of this is that every three to five years, you will, not only be replacing such computers but having to dispose of the assets too.

With this in mind, it’s vital to develop an ongoing strategy when disposing of your IT assets. A thorough ITAD strategy will ensure that your old assets are disposed of in line with data and environmental regulations and are not viewed as worthless ‘waste’.

Here are our top five tips to consider when implementing your ITAD strategy.

1. Efficient IT Asset Auditing

In large companies, trying to audit all your IT assets isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially if you have a global presence. Therefore, a physical audit– and not to rely on searching via network crawlers – is vital for two reasons. Firstly, it will create an accurate audit. And secondly, the physical condition of the assets can be evaluated which is important if you plan to reuse or resell them.

Your ITAD partner must be able to perform such a global audit, and in doing so, will be best placed to advise you on what should be resold, reused or recycled. Getting the best price for your parts as ‘new’ supply equivalents requires not only a global knowledge of the market but a global presence too.

2. End User Management Portal

When you start your ITAD process, you should be able to monitor its progress through an End User Management Portal. Such a portal must be customized to suit your company’s needs; for example, you may require reconciliation to fixed asset registers, engineering systems and/or accounting system logs.

As assets are processed, their status will be updated in real time, thus providing you with a live report. This will give you full ‘track and trace’ of all assets within your ITAD strategy.

3. Cloud Migration

As more companies are moving their assets to a virtualized cloud environment, it means that entire server rooms are being decommissioned. In this situation, it’s important that your ITAD strategy maximizes both cost and efficiencies.

Most likely, your on-premise assets will be of varying quality. Your ITAD partner should perform a physical audit and advise you on the highest global resell value of the equipment. Also, parts may be able to be reused within your company, thus saving you more money.

Lastly, you must be assured that all data is permanently deleted. Failure to do so may lead to data breaches and subsequent fines.

4. Data Breaches

Data breaches are a company’s worst nightmare. A breach will damage your reputation and will result in hefty fines, too. Also, according to research, the average breach takes around 191 days for a company to realize it has happened, thus compounding the problem.

When deploying your ITAD strategy you must be sure that your data is destroyed in line with best industry practice. And once the data is destroyed, you will be able to securely retrieve either a certificate of erasure or an evidential video file of the device destruction.

5. Environmental and Health & Safety Standards

Adhering to environmental waste standards is an important part of your ITAD strategy. Failure to do so puts the environment and people’s health at risk, while leaving your company open to regulatory fines.

Depending on your jurisdiction, the disposal of your IT assets must adhere to local environment standards (such as the EU WEEE Directive), while ensuring that the health and safety of those involved in the destruction of the e-waste are protected.

The prevention of pollution and the elimination of waste going to landfill should also drive your ITAD strategy. Such environmental considerations should be backed up by certified processes such as ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001, among others.

In summary, a certified and professional ITAD strategy will give you peace of mind during the ITAD process, while saving you money in the long term.

According to Gartner Research, such a strategy will typically achieve a 30% cost savings in the first year, and at least 5% cost savings in each of the following five years.

If you have any questions or if you would like help establishing an ITAD strategy please contact our Wisetek team:  https://wisetek.net/contact-us/