Conveniently located and affordable? What more could you ask for when selecting an IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) partner for your business? Actually, it could be a lot. Companies that primarily use cost and location to decide who should handle their retired electronic assets take significant risks.
When time is short and budgets are tight, a seductively low quote tied to a promise of getting the job done early could be hard to turn down! And, if the vendor happens to have a geographic advantage, how could you not sign on?
Factors beyond mere convenience are essential when it comes to the process of selecting an IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) partner. Here’s why:
A common misconception of the ITAD industry is the associated costs of the services. One could conclude, that fiscally, the addition of yet another supplier to your organization is an additional cost of doing business. However, an ITAD vendor will evaluate if that old laptop, desktop, server, etc. can be remarketed or reused.
There are many organizations nationwide that have been able to achieve cost-neutral programs. Say your annual recycling fees for non-valuable IT products (phones, printers, keyboards) is $40,000 a year. A strategic ITAD vendor can recover those costs by remarketing retired IT assets that still hold value.
At OceanTech any equipment that still holds value is catalogued for reimbursement, sanitized of all data, reset to factory default setting, and returned to grade-A condition to guarantee the best possible resale rate. Our expert sales and marketing teams will work within our exceptional network of trusted consumers to ensure your equipment is sold to the best end-user or IT broker for maximum return on your assets.
As a leader in the ITAD industry, it is vital to OceanTech that we meet or exceed all industry standards and data destruction regulations. We do this my maintaining R2:2013 Responsible Recycling, ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management System and ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health and Safety Management System certifications — that’s where cost comes in. Proper data destruction takes time and requires special equipment.
In other words, recycling costs tend to correlate with the rigorousness of asset disposition — and data cleansing in particular. Although it certainly does not mean the highest quote automatically equals superior service, it is wise to beware of quotes that come in way below the competition.
If the high-profile data leaks of recent years have taught companies anything, it’s to take data protection seriously, even if the product is end-of-life (EOL).
Data protection standards mean your organization can be held liable, not only tomorrow, but years from now. As you part with data related to Patient Health Information (PHI), Personable Identifiable Information (PII), the payment card industry (PCI) data, and other sensitive information, a transfer of ownership certificate does not clear you of responsibility if it falls into the wrong hands.
Another wise move: Avoid selecting an ITAD partner based solely on location. Again, as convenient as it may be to enlist the nearest electronics recycler, consider your options. You run the risk of working with someone who does not live up to far more important criteria. The fact is location is less of a prohibitive factor than in the past. The cost of palletized shipping is typically not a budget-buster and worth it when the receiver is just the type of trusted partner that you’ve been searching for. Your partner may even offer logistics services that make pick up and transportation easy. At OceanTech we do just that.
In conclusion, if you let cost and location overshadow other, more important, factors when selecting an ITAD partner, you could pay a high price in the long run. Inadequate sanitization, the accidental release of sensitive data, disappointing resale revenue, out-of-the-box solutions, and lack of transparency each outweighs the benefit of going with a quote that seems too good to be true.
There are many highly qualified ITAD partners to choose from, and you should make sure you work with the very best. Contact us to learn how OceanTech can help you.