IT asset recovery—recovering some of the investment a company has put into its IT assets by reselling them after they have been retired—is vitally important to companies trying to get the most out of their IT dollars. Many assets are still quite usable when they reach the end of their service to a particular organization. To get the most return on investment for your IT assets when they reach the end of their lifecycle at your organization, follow these four guidelines.

1. Don’t allow your it assets to become damaged

After your IT assets have survived their service to your organization, it would be a shame for them to become damaged right before they hit the resale market. Even the most in-demand technology items won’t sell for much if they’re damaged. To avoid damage, follow all best practices for handling, sorting and packaging your retired assets. Make sure your team members have received training on those best practices and have access to the space and materials to do it right. If not, consider partnering with a ITAD vendor that specializes in IT asset recovery.

2. Keep a close eye on the market and don’t wait too long

The market for used IT assets can be extremely fast-paced. Large amounts of the same equipment can flood the market, or demand for new or used equipment can change based on new technology and software applications. This can send a lot of the same equipment onto the resale market at the same time. Allowing your retired equipment to sit in closets or storage rooms too long will result in missed opportunities for maximum IT asset recovery.

3. Keep systems intact

Complete systems will have significantly more value. The cost of replacing items like memory, hard drives, power supplies, etc. includes sourcing the part as well as the labor to make the replacement. Don’t remove components from your assets unless it’s absolutely necessary. That includes hard drives, power supplies, batteries, monitors stands, and anything else detachable. If your techs need spare parts for repairs, set aside specific machines for that purpose, so that only a small number are affected and most of your retired assets can be sold as complete units.

4. Consider data sanitization over physical destruction

If your company’s data destruction policy is to physically destroy the hard drives of every piece of retired IT equipment, consider the increased value equipment with intact hard drive can demand on the resale market. While physical destruction ensures a visible level of data security, experts agree that data sanitization done right—that is, according to the latest accepted industry standards like NIST 800-88 and using proper software tools and processes —is equivalent in data security to physical destruction. And, when drives are properly wiped rather than destroyed, they remain functional, and therefore resalable. If your company lacks the capacity to perform proper data erasure, look for a partner that has received AAA certification from the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID).

A free guide to help with IT asset recovery

Recovering the value of your IT assets is one of the top priorities of IT asset managers. Our free “IT Asset Manager’s Guide to Disposition” discusses this in-depth and suggests strategies for integrating IT asset recovery into an enterprise-wide IT asset disposition (ITAD) program.