5 Benefits of an IT Asset Disposition Plan

No matter what line of business you’re in, your team relies on various IT devices every day to get the job done. From laptops to servers and beyond, these items play a vital role in your organization’s success and need to be managed properly. Just as important as managing your IT assets is creating a comprehensive plan to dispose of or replace them.

IT asset disposition (ITAD) is the process of getting rid of your IT equipment. Of course, it’s not as simple as throwing your items away when they’re ready to be replaced – ITAD also considers financial, information security, and environmental considerations. Ideally, an ITAD plan should cover various areas, such as:

• When items should be repaired instead of replaced
• How to decommission IT equipment
• How to recycle or reuse IT devices
• How to resell or donate IT hardware

While it’s essential to have a playbook for getting rid of and replacing your IT equipment, there are also various benefits to implementing an ITAD plan. Let’s look at 5 of the most common ones.

1. Increased Cost Savings

When you take the time to evaluate your IT asset disposition options thoroughly, you’ll likely find opportunities for cost savings instead of simply cutting your losses. Specifically, you may find that items can be repaired rather than replaced, or you may be able to resell them to another organization or individual.

2. Better Compliance and Risk Mitigation

When an IT asset does need to be recycled or disposed of, you’ll most likely need to engage with a third-party ITAD provider to get rid of them safely and sustainably. IT devices often contain hazardous materials that can harm the environment when they’re not disposed of properly, which is why 25 states have passed e-waste laws so far. Building your ITAD plan to remain compliant with your state’s e-waste legislation will mitigate the risk of non-compliance and environmental harm.

3. Lower Carbon Footprint

Proper IT asset disposition not only plays a role in your e-waste compliance but also your carbon footprint. Safely recycling and disposing of your IT hardware can lower your carbon footprint, helping your company’s sustainability efforts.

4. Enhanced Data Security

Whether you’re reselling or disposing of a device, you could still be subject to a breach if data isn’t properly erased beforehand. With a comprehensive plan in place to decommission an IT asset and delete all its data before passing it off to a third party, you’ll increase your data security.

5. More Accurate Insights

As part of your ITAD plan, you should regularly conduct audits of your asset inventory. With up-to-date information on the status and condition of your IT devices, you’ll not only have more accurate data on hand but will also be able to better plan for future hardware investments. If you use an IT asset management solution with depreciation reporting, you’ll also be able to calculate the value of your devices to make it easier to repurpose or resell them.

Conclusion

When you take the time to build an effective ITAD plan, you can improve your organization’s compliance, data security, sustainability, and more.

Whether you’re starting from scratch or need to optimize an existing ITAD plan, we’ve got you covered. Read our Comprehensive Guide to IT Asset Disposition for best practices to build and implement your plan.

Looking for the right software to manage the entire lifecycle of your IT assets? Request your Asset Panda demo today!