Even if your equipment has reached the end of its useful life or is no longer of use to you, that doesn’t mean it’s obsolete! Over the last few years, more and more companies have been opting for reconditioned equipment to meet a manufacturer’s stock shortage, extend the lifespan of their fleet, add equipment to their fleet at lower cost or reduce their environmental footprint.
Don’t confuse recycling with reuse!
European companies have embraced the recycling reflex, but the term “recycled equipment” is often misused. The difference between recycling and reuse is often misunderstood within companies. It is important to emphasize that broken or unused equipment should not be considered as waste, as it can be reconditioned and used again.
Reuse or reconditioning gives a second life to goods that are not considered waste, and enables them to be reused for their original purpose. Recycling should be seen as an option of last resort for IT equipment, due to the highly polluting composition of WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), which makes it difficult to recycle. What’s more, with each recycling cycle, the quality of the materials diminishes and eventually becomes non-recyclable. It is therefore preferable to reuse second-hand equipment or spare parts before recycling.
Why buy back your IT equipment?
- Give your equipment a second life through reuse
- Save money (your equipment still has value)
- Comply with your RGPD obligations by erasing data certified as mandatory for all trade-ins
- Optimize your storage costs
- Benefit from full traceability of your equipment processing
- Reduce your carbon footprint by avoiding the manufacture of new equipment
A word from Christophe Guillarme, Codeo General Manager
“Equipment buyback makes it possible to secure data, comply with current regulations, improve IT asset management, reduce the cost of acquiring new equipment, guarantee the quality of reconditioned products and provide a second life for existing products. However, equipment take-back requires rigorous management and specialized expertise to ensure its long-term viability, and to meet logistical and economic challenges efficiently.”
5 tips for managing the end-of-life of your equipment
Choose a local partner
It goes without saying that sustainable management of your IT assets requires a local and reusable approach. By choosing a local or national player to recover and take back your fleet of smartphones, PCs and tablets, you can realize a number of benefits, such as optimizing your costs, reducing the environmental impact of transport, promoting local roots and job creation, and benefiting from a close, transparent relationship throughout your project.
Organize your buyback
It’s advisable not to wait until you have all your units before upgrading them. It’s better to do it gradually, to maximize the financial gain.
For your smartphone fleet, think about iCloud, SIM, MDM and Gmail blocking
It’s essential to follow certain steps before upgrading your equipment, especially for smartphone fleets. As a first step, we recommend that you make a de-locking request to your operator to obtain deactivation codes. Next, you need to ask your employees to back up their data and remove their iCloud and Gmail accounts. Finally, you need to remove your units from your company’s MDM.
If these steps are not followed, your equipment cannot be reused or recycled.
Demand traceability of your equipment and full transparency of processes
When you entrust your fleet of mobile devices to a company for reuse, it’s vital to ensure that it has a recognized and certified data erasure accreditation such as BLANCCO. It’s also important to check that you have access to all documents attesting to the traceability of your equipment, such as the certificate of re-use, dismantling or destruction by IMEI or serial number, the material balance (WEEE) and the carbon certificate (volume of CO2 avoided through re-use).
CMMS for close tracking
For accurate, real-time tracking, we recommend the use of a CMMS adapted to the management of your fleet. It will enable you to manage trade-in requests, audit follow-up and recovery, as well as centralizing your certificates.
