Whether it’s because of a planned refresh cycle or a technology upgrade, you may be done with some of your IT assets but that doesn’t mean they don’t have some remaining life and value. Your technology assets could be worth something on the resale market. Remarketing is an opportunity for your organization to recoup some of its initial investment on those assets. If you’re concerned about the cost of IT asset disposition (ITAD), remarketing is a way for IT equipment to pay for its own disposal. You might cover some or all of your disposition costs. To ensure you get the most for your retired IT equipment, follow these guidelines:

How to make sure your IT assets are primed for resale

1. Handle with care. Your equipment has survived its service to your organization intact. Don’t let it get damaged before it hits the resale market. Avoid damage by following best practices for storing and packing your retired assets. They need to be packed to prevent damage during shipping, or you will lose significant value. If you are unsure how to do this, or don’t have the time or resources, your ITAD partner should provide you with options and detailed instructions for packing to meet transportation regulations and to protect your asset value.
2. Move fast. Don’t let your assets sit too long before remarketing. When new hardware releases occur, many companies move to refresh at the same time, sending a lot of the same equipment into the resale market. Remarketed asset values can change quickly. Avoid stockpiling assets in closets or storage rooms. Have it removed as often as possible.
3. Consider price trends. Although the market for used technology is fluid and returns can fluctuate, price trends can be identified by asset type or class. Your IT asset disposition partner can help you determine when your assets will go from revenue generators to cost creators. Plan your upcoming refresh cycles with your partner’s input to ensure you optimize the return value of your equipment being decommissioned.
4. Keep it together. Systems with missing components will net you lower returns. Don’t let your techs randomly pull parts from your machines. Also, make sure hard drives, power supplies, batteries, monitor stands, and all other detachable components are provided to your vendor along with the assets. If you need parts, set aside a specific number of assets just for that purpose.
5. Sanitization, not destruction. The difference in resale value between systems with hard drives and those without can be up to 30 percent. All the major standards organizations in the U.S. and Europe accept proper data erasure as equal to the physical destruction of drives. A certified partner can perform data sanitization in compliance with the latest industry standards. (Look for certification from NAID, the National Association for Information Destruction.) On the other hand, erasure does cost money, so erasing data from equipment that won’t have resale value can be a waste. One method – erasure or destruction – does not fit all the possible disposition scenarios, even within the same organization.

A holistic ITAD program will help you achieve maximum resale value

By implementing an enterprise-wide ITAD program with specific roles and procedures for every link in the chain, you can be sure your IT assets have been handled according to best practices for getting the best value from remarketing. In addition to investment recovery, our IT Asset Manager’s Guide to Disposition discusses how a holistic ITAD program can respond to your concerns about ITAD costs and integrating disposition data into your existing asset management system.