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IT Asset Recovery Ultimate Guide: Maximize Returns

Unduit has helped companies of all sizes achieve remarkable IT asset recovery rates. We have successfully boosted recovery rates from minimal fractions to an impressive range of 80-90%, resulting in substantial savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars in IT budgets. What's our secret to success? It's rooted in a decade of dedicated research and mastering the optimization process for complex organizations with thousands of employees spanning the globe.   But here's the best part: we're excited to share all the valuable insights with you. In this ultimate guide to IT asset recovery, you'll find everything you need to know about optimizing your asset recovery process and achieving maximum ROI on your EOL technology. What is IT Asset Recovery? IT asset recovery is the process of retrieving and managing company-owned technology devices from employees or other sources. It helps ensure efficient resource utilization, cost savings, and data security. Sometimes this term is also used to refer to the entire process of retrieving, managing, and potentially extracting value from IT assets that are no longer in use or needed by a company.    Importance of Professional Asset Recovery Service Even though companies have the option to handle asset retrieval in-house, leveraging professional asset recovery services offers several advantages. By partnering with a reputable service provider, organizations can always ensure the following benefits: Cost Savings: Professional services help maximize cost savings by recovering and repurposing IT assets instead of purchasing new devices. Resource Optimization: Partnering with a service provider frees up company resources that would otherwise be dedicated to asset recovery, allowing them to focus on more critical tasks. Data Security: Asset recovery company ensures that sensitive company information is securely handled during the whole process and they can be held accountable if there's any data breach. Environmental Responsibility: Service providers promote sustainability by facilitating proper recycling or refurbishment of recovered assets, reducing electronic waste. Compliance and Risk Mitigation: Specialized organizations specialize in helping companies comply with regulatory requirements and mitigate the risk of data breaches. Automated Workflow: Utilizing an automated workflow system, service providers streamline and ensure efficiency and accuracy at every step.   The Procedure of IT Asset Recovery Assessment and Deployment Recovering company assets is a critical process that begins with a thorough assessment and deployment strategy. This involves identifying the assets to be recovered, evaluating their condition, and determining the most suitable approach for each device. Asset Assignment and Tracking To ensure proper management and accountability, recovered assets are assigned to specific employees or departments. This allows for efficient tracking throughout the recovery process, providing visibility into the ownership and location of each asset. Reporting and Data Security Data security is of utmost importance during the IT asset recovery process. Comprehensive reporting mechanisms are implemented to track the progress and status of each asset. Measures are taken to safeguard sensitive data through secure erasure or destruction methods. Asset Removal and Repurposing Once data security measures are in place, assets are removed from employees' possession. Depending on their condition and company requirements, the recovered assets can be repurposed for internal use or refurbished for resale. Another option is to donate the assets to charitable organizations, extending their lifespan and making a positive social impact. Choosing to Warehouse and Redeploy, Recycle, or Resell Professional asset recovery services usually offer organizations three primary options: warehousing and redeployment, recycling, or reselling. Warehousing and Redeployment  Recovered assets in good condition can be stored in a designated warehouse for future use (after refurbishment). This allows for internal redeployment to other employees or departments, maximizing resource utilization and minimizing unnecessary expenses. Recycling To ensure the safety of company data and minimize environmental impact, assets that are no longer functional or needed can undergo responsible asset disposition.  Reselling Organizations that no longer require old equipment but prefer not to recycle them can opt for liquidation by properly reselling the recovered assets. Liquidation provides an opportunity to recoup some of the investment while ensuring proper data destruction and compliance with regulatory requirements. Choosing the Right Asset Recovery Company It's important to choose a vendor that has extensive experience dealing with retired IT equipment. An experienced team of asset recovery specialists can help you get maximum residual value from every retired IT asset. Here are the major factors when evaluating vendors: Secure Chain of Logistics: Look for a vendor that prioritizes the secure transportation and handling of your assets and offers maximum visibility. This includes secure packing, using asset tag for better asset tracking, chain of custody records, and transportation insurance to safeguard against loss or damage. Global Support: If your organization operates internationally or has a distributed workforce, it's essential to choose a vendor that offers global support. This ensures seamless asset recovery regardless of location, with expertise in navigating local regulations and logistics. Flexibility in Service Options: A reliable vendor should offer flexible service options tailored to your specific requirements, whether on-site asset removal, hard drive destruction, or remarketing assistance. Certificates of Data Destruction: Data security is paramount in asset recovery. Ensure that the vendor provides certified data destruction services, verifying the proper sanitization or destruction of all electronic equipment. Reselling or remarketing: Opt for a vendor with expertise in recovering value from used assets. Look for those with a wide buyer network and the ability to maximize returns on your assets. Environmental Reporting: Choose a vendor with transparent environmental reporting to ensure their commitment to sustainable practices. Certifications and Compliance: Prioritize vendors with certifications like R2 or e-Stewards to ensure compliant e waste recycling. Integration with Systems and Inventory: Opt for a vendor that seamlessly integrates with your current systems to share data about your existing IT assets. This will help minimize conflicts and make the process seamless. Automation and Software Capabilities: Look for vendors leveraging automation and software platforms to take efficiency and visibility to the next level. Typical ITAD service providers usually don't offer this. Other than this, assess reliability through past projects, and client references to ensure their expertise meets your needs. Tips to Maximize Recovery Rates Before discussing best practices to maximize recovery rates, it's important to understand how they are calculated. Recovery rates are simply determined by dividing the number of recovered IT assets by the total number of eligible assets. Early communication with employees Proactively communicate with employees during offboarding, requesting the return of devices and providing reminders at each stage. Automating these communications ensures consistent and timely interactions Utilize automated solutions Implement an automated asset recovery solution to streamline processes, from tracking and management to reporting and disposition. Automation improves efficiency, reduces errors, and optimizes recovery. Ensure full visibility and reporting Establish a system that provides comprehensive visibility and reporting on all levels. Robust tracking mechanisms enable monitoring, and identification of bottlenecks, ensure no valuable assets are lost, and help with informed decision-making. IT Asset Recovery Cost Determining the exact pricing for IT asset recovery services can be a complex task. Here are some of the top factors that impact the cost: Hardware Specifications: The type, age, and condition of recovered IT assets influence pricing. Higher-value or specialized equipment may require extra handling. Electronics Recycling: If included, recycling services add value but can affect costs. The scope of recycling offered may vary. Storage Costs: When warehousing your assets with the vendor, consider expenses related to space, security, and maintenance. The volume of Assets: The quantity or volume of assets being recovered can impact pricing, as larger quantities may require additional resources or processing. Additional Services: Factors like data wiping, asset testing, refurbishment, remarketing, compliance records, and asset management software fees may impact pricing. We hope you found this ultimate guide to IT asset recovery helpful in understanding the importance and intricacies of the process. If you're interested in learning more or need further assistance in optimizing IT asset recovery in your organization, we can help. Get in touch with our team to explore how we can help you maximize returns, streamline your recovery efforts, and maximize ROI on retired assets. Continue reading

Suhaib K.

ITAD specialist

Tips and Tricks

May 03, 2021

Why is it important to understand the difference between data destruction and data erasure?

The option to leave your cellphone with or without a lock screen pin-code is a thought rarely pondered upon by most smartphone users. It is a no-brainer for any individual since privacy is a top priority when it comes to protecting sensitive data (contacts, payment history, financing apps, location services, and more) that could potentially harm them if it falls into the wrong hands. Apply the same concern to an organization or business, the magnitude of the risk skyrockets. This is not just paranoia but an actual concern. To put things into perspective an entire school district in the United States was a victim of ransomware attacks that lead to all schools being shut down in the year 2020. The data must be either secured actively if it is in use or must be destroyed if the data is no longer of use and is a potential liability for the owner. Data destruction and data erasure processes come into effect when the target data is no longer of use and has become a potential liability for the owner. Like any process both routes to make your data have their pros and cons. Data destruction processes are to either physically destroy the media containing the target data or to render it useless for access. this method guarantees the highest probability of the data being irrecoverable and unaccusable but also renders the device to be incapable of being used again or to be warranted/recycled. Some of the prominent methods are: Melting/hammering/drilling/crushing. Data Shredding is the physical destruction of a target data media in an industrial size grinder that breaks it down into fragments smaller than 2 millimeters or less. It is to be noted that the probability of accessing destroyed data is still there. Drives such as the Solid-State Drives (SSDs) where data is stored so densely that it can remain intact in shredded fragments. Degaussing: is the removal or reduction of the magnetic field of a storage disk or drive. degausser devices render the data on the media completely unrecoverable. Data Erasure is a term interchangeably used with the term data sanitization. This method of eliminating liability data ensures that the target data is destroyed or unrecoverable completely and keeps target data’s media intact. Methods for data sanitization are: Data Erasure: Applies software that writes a random binary script that replaces data on the media completely ensuring that all the data has been replaced at the byte level completely. Cryptographic Erasure: uses public-key cryptography to encrypt all the data on the device and then the key is discarded, effectively erasing all data on the media. Data Masking: Involves creating fake versions of the data, which retain structural properties of the original data. This method ensures the sanitization of data while the media is still in use.   Briefly understanding both methods to secure data that is a liability to the owner the importance of having both options amplify themselves. While physical data destruction has a higher probability of making the data inaccessible it renders the media useless making it only suitable to be trashed or recycled. Physical data destruction can be a costly method depending on which method is being used. Degaussers are expensive devices and if the target data is stored on multiple units, then shredding becomes a tedious process that can also present multiple risk during the process. Data erasure method are more costly than data destruction methods but make up for their cost by making the media usable again. This method also presents itself as a double-edged blade considering the data erasure methods are 100% effective but can only be applied to devices that are in working condition and that are compatible with the software being used. The decision to use which method depends mainly on what is to be done with the media of the target data. To destroy or not to destroy that is the final question.  

Haseeb Jamshed

ITAD specialist

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