Beyond ITAD: Why IT Asset Refurbishment and Reuse is Good Business

Extending the life of IT equipment through reuse and refurbishment not only contributes to an organization’s sustainability initiatives but is also an essential component of an IT cost management strategy. IT asset disposition (ITAD), or the process of safely and responsibly disposing of obsolete or unwanted IT equipment, is evolving to encompass circularity principles that extend equipment life through reuse and refurbishment.

Enterprise IT organizations aren’t interested in maintaining fleets of bespoke equipment. Troubleshooting unique hardware and software combinations is costly and time-consuming and risks introducing incompatibilities and conflicts caused by software or configurations unique to a device.

For these reasons, IT groups typically maintain a small number of approved devices they purchase in quantity to maximize discounts. Images, which are snapshots of a computer's software and data that usually include an operating system, applications, and configuration, are stored in a library from which they can be replicated to new or refurbished devices within a few hours. This approach reduces support needs to a finite set of systems, peripherals and software and ensures that new devices run the same software and patches as others in the field.

Hard drives, displays and other components can be easily swapped from an inventory of compatible parts. Retired or broken machines can be disassembled and their parts reused. IT organizations can minimize their inventories of devices and parts and upgrade large numbers of PCs and laptops quickly and consistently using identical parts. Maintenance is dramatically simplified because computers and components can be easily swapped without the risk of software incompatibilities.

Internal Reuse

Most employees don’t need state-of-the-art equipment so older devices can be redeployed to less processing-intensive tasks. An executive’s high-end laptop can be handed down to an entry-level salesperson or clerical worker to extend its useful life for years. IT organizations can maintain two or three generations of equipment and cycle through them incrementally, retiring end-of-life devices and replacing them with new ones in bulk.