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With the kindly permission of the author "reprint" here an article about disposal methods in IT world, which came out in autumn 2010 in Regiony24 magazine.
TCO in the final cycle of computer technology lifecycle, or how to effectively get rid of the old PC.
It has been written many studies dealing with the total cost of ownership of the IT hardware. But in none of them you could find any note of the last phase - that is, how to deal with equipment that has served its time. So I decided to build on Jan Neruda's "Where with it" story and to shed light on the perspective of computing of the 21th century and especially corporate costs.
It does not matter whether you're rich company replacing equipment regularly and disposing fully usable equipments, or saving and disposing only when "with this thing really is the work impossible." In both cases, you must consider what steps you have to do to provide the disposal.
Let's start first scenario: disposal of a quite new and usable machines. A common mistake is to look at the bazaars websites, auctions and ads, to see for how much -for example- similar laptop can be sold. Of course, if you sell one laptop, you sell it at such price in the auction as well. If you sell, let say 100 laptops, you're in a different situation. If you want to sell it for such price, then would have your IT team to thoroughly test all laptops, verify the configuration, and determine whether you can give some warranty to decide whether and how to install what software on these laptops. And then gradually sell off. When you look at it from this perspective, it is more ambitious project than was the purchase of the laptops and you have to devote about 500 hours of your IT staff. This method of selling is becoming very financially unprofitable.
It can be recommended only for decommissioning 1-2 pieces of equipment. For larger quantities it is very inefficient.
Another option is the bazaars. It is the middle way, I do not think “good middle way”, but for many companies it may be the optimal approach. If you have reasonably accurate records and can give an accurate list of equipments, including basic configuration and functionality, the cost of this option is minimal. The drawback is that the bazaar from the list selects only what is interesting for them, and the rest will remain in your warehouse. Another pitfall can be if bazaar founds deviations from configuration, failure of some equipment etc. These items usually refuses to pay. In practice, it happens that a bazaar from the list orders 90% items, and then they come for it, changes their mind and takes just 70% and finally, after a long negotiation pay 50%.
Bazaars price offered is usually around half the prices "on the advert”. If you have an accurate list of equipments and you are sure it is functional, you will get for your 100 laptops good price without having the IT department had many worries.
The last option is to sell to company, which is engaged in overhauls of computer technology. The aim of such companies is to facilitate the seller to easily dispose IT equipments as much as possible. For them it is the material purchase for further processing and thus buys practically anything, at a fair price, of course. The basic principle is very simple. Just send a list of what you want to get rid of, and the company will send a quote. For the whole list, without any exception. The price offered is of course dependent on the extent of information you provide. If you provide a list of 100 notebooks with exact configurations together with five computers 15 years old, the price will not be much lower than the Bazaar offered price - and you get rid of even the 5 "old scrap" clogging in your IT room. Some companies also offer additional services such as data deleting from data carriers, data carriers disassembly and transferring to your foreign mother company for example and so on.
If you do not want to waste time and overload your IT team capacity, this is the best option. Send a list, get a quote and after your approval they provide all logistics to transfer the equipment wherever it is. They pay their bill at agreed price, and you will never hear about these equipments again. The price is typically around 1/3 price "on the advert" The cost of realization the sales are virtually zero.
One of the companies of this type is also Xpert s.r.o. , the sponsor of this article.
On the sidelines I still have to mention another opportunity to sell - the sale to your employees, or a gift to schools and other nonprofit organization. Since in this case it is not the primary aim the highest possible financial benefit (or savings), it is not object of this article.
Now we come to the second scenario: liquidation of useless equipments. Nowadays actually free disposal. There are various collection systems that just come to you to pick up the equipment and your only concern is to make the equipments accessible, so that they can be easily loaded into truck. Free is usually just loading from a place near the truck parking place. In case you have demanding loading, the loading has to be paid or you should provide it by your own resources. Some companies charge a small fee for bulky or extremely outdated technology. If you choose a good company in your area and you do not have the equipment older than about 10 years, the liquidation probably will cost you nothing.
About the article author: Ing Petr Kučera was employed in the Gartner Group Czech Republic as analyst previously and currently works as a finance-controlling-logistics consultant. In addition he is the Xpert s.r.o. founding partner.
About Xpert s.r.o.: The company itself was founded in 2003 by merging several companies. Xpert s.r.o. and its predecessors purchases and refurbish computers and telecommunication technology and electronics since 1998. The company headquarter is located in Břešťany - Zlonice and operating mostly in the capital city of Prague but has clients all over the Czech Republic and some clients on Slovakia and Germany.