IT asset recovery is the process of recovering value from outdated or decommissioned technology assets. There are many ways to recover that value, including repurposing assets, recycling them, or disposing of them. Not only is IT asset recovery an integral part of a business’s IT asset management solution, it is a huge factor in a company’s environmental impact and secondarily impacts their bottom line.
What is the process of asset recovery?
Any type of technology an employee comes in contact with is considered an IT asset, whether tangible or not. These assets fall into three main categories: hardware, software, and data. Recovering these items is important to a business for many reasons, first and foremost being to ensure the integrity and security of sensitive information. Without recovering assets from employees or office locations when they are outdated or in need of replacement, that data could continue to live on a machine and be accessible to anyone with access to it. Recovering assets is also a way to recoup financial investment on these computers, monitors, etc. that allows the company to spend elsewhere.
What is the IT asset recovery process
The success of an IT asset recovery process hinges on a structured and repeatable process that is planned, implemented, and continuously monitored with a company’s desired outcomes in mind. Whether you are working with an ITAM partner, like Multiply Technology, or attempting to recover IT assets on your own, you must have clear goals and objectives to establish a strategy. This planning phase will allow your company to better understand what you hope to achieve in the asset recovery process, and any potential blockers that may occur and need to be addressed ahead of time, like shipping and logistics issues or access to the required data erasure tools. All relevant parties must be a part of this process, and that could include IT, HR, and finance just to name a few. Once the plan is in motion, continued monitoring and evaluation of assets should be handled on a regular basis.
What are the steps in asset recovery?
There are a number of steps taken in the IT asset recovery process.
Assessment: Auditing and evaluating assets to determine if they are outdated or in need of decommissioning.
Data Removal: Wipe company sensitive data from the asset if necessary using industry accepted tools like Blanco.
Remarketing and Resale: Approving assets to be resold to the general public internally or through an ITAM partner company.
Recycling: For those assets that are not suitable for continued use, disposing of hardware responsibly and through a certified recycler is imperative.
These steps are all critical to the success of your IT asset recovery process. Without one of these areas being executed effectively, you could have a data breach, negate financial gain, or negatively impact the environment which is a big issue for companies to grapple with in today’s society.
How do you recover assets?
There are two main ways you can recover your IT assets. First, you can do it in-house. This may tie up your internal IT team’s time and resources that could be spent on other business critical activities, but there are some advantages to this route. Your team controls the entirety of the process, meaning you have insight into every decision and step along the way. This would also mean you would need to spend time training and educating your employees on IT asset management to ensure you do not have any data compromised or assets not evaluated properly for monetary recuperation. The other option would be to outsource IT asset recovery management to an ITAM partner. This would allow your IT department to focus on big picture tasks and projects. When choosing an IT asset management provider, companies should be sure to review their data erasure tools, resale policies, and make sure they are a certified recycler or partnered with one. At Multiply, we work with our client’s IT teams to give them all the insight they would like into our recovery processes to guarantee their faith in our practices and expertise.
Let Multiply Technology be Your IT Recovery Team
When you partner with an ITAM company like Multiply, the day to day operations of an IT asset recovery process are managed for you. We ensure that your team is updated regularly on progress, which allows them to make other business decisions effectively and carry out other tasks necessary to your company’s continued success. Interested in learning more? Contact us today!
