Business Recovers $70,000 by Incorporating E-Recycling into Everyday Business

SMS Assembly Case Study: Business Recovers $70,000 by Incorporating E-Recycling into Everyday Business 

Background

Businesses are always seeking ways to do more with less and maximize every dollar of their expenditures, especially in the IT department since technology can be a substantial expense with a short shelf life. Many companies are assessing their unwanted and unused IT assets to recover a portion of the original cost. Often unsure of which IT assets are valuable and which are not, companies of all sizes need clear valuation steps to decide where to focus their e-recycling efforts and maximize IT asset recovery return.

IT asset recovery and e-recycling are simple, profitable options compared to how some businesses currently dispose of their old IT equipment—selling by the pound for pennies on the dollar, tossing in a trash dumpster or stockpiling in a storage room out of sight. SMS Assembly’s IT recycling program provides an environmentally safe and financially lucrative alternative.

Using SMS Assembly as the e-recycler and a real IT asset recovery scenario from a Fortune-ranked company for our case study, we examined, valuated and refurbished thousands of memory modules. Our team carefully inspected each memory component and analyzed its worth on the resale market. From those modules, we extracted those pieces that held the highest value, as well as those best used for other purposes. By incorporating e-recycling into their IT upgrade cycle, the company earned $70,000—nearly $60,000 more than they expected—on just one recycling transaction with SMS Assembly.

Methods

Prior to contacting SMS Assembly to valuate their used memory modules, the company’s IT asset recovery mentality was to broadcast to a wide audience the IT assets they had available for e-recycling. This approach did not create the competition to buy their IT assets for which they had hoped. In fact, it only made it appear the company had more product than what they really had, and it depressed the price they would be paid for their old IT assets.

The company decided to take a different route for one of their e-recycling campaigns. They separated the memory modules for IT asset recovery into two batches. One lot was shipped to another IT recycler. One with an equal number of memory modules was shipped to SMS Assembly. SMS received 7,000 memory modules that the company expected to be worth approximately $13,000. SMS Assembly’s e-recycling experts carefully identified, sorted, tested and remarketed the modules suitable for resale.

Results

SMS Assembly cut the company a check for $70,000, which was $57,000 more than what they anticipated. The other e-recycler paid a lesser dollar amount—significantly less. Of the 7,000 memory modules examined and tested, a large quantity was deemed as having significant resale market value. Rather than seemingly flooding the memory module resale market, SMS Assembly has targeted and built solid relationships with buyers who most often purchase refurbished, high value IT assets. These recycled pieces are first offered to our top tier clients to maximize the return for our recycling customers. Used memory modules that were classified at less or zero value were recycled following strict R2 certified standards and valued at the per pound scrap price.

Server, desktop and laptop memory DDR1, DDR2, DDR3 and above have the most value. HP and IBM original server memory tends to fetch a higher price because they are specialty items. The HP Part numbers look like 500205-071, which is a 8GB DDR3 PC3-10600R ECC Registered server memory module. The IBM FRU looks like 46C7575, which is a 8GB DDR2 PC2-5300F FBDIMM.

The Fortune company has chosen to make e-recycling with SMS Assembly part of their IT asset recovery practice. Though it started with 7,000 memory modules, they are beginning to branch out to e-recycling other types of used IT assets. The company is netting more money than they expected from their IT assets and their recycler, SMS Assembly, than they thought possible or had received from other e-recyclers in the past.

Not only is the company profiting more from their e-recycling efforts, so too is the environment since these IT assets are refurbished and resold whenever possible. The rest is responsibly disposed of according to R2 certification standards. The buyers of these refurbished components are able to gain the technology they need to grow and expand their businesses. The result is truly a full circle that benefits all involved.

Recommendations and Conclusion

Identifying ways to recover money from used IT assets opens opportunities for businesses, organizations and institutions to maximize their IT spend and their budgets overall. Companies that take the time and effort to explore e-recycling options and fully integrating them into everyday business processes could gain an advantage over competitors. The money earned from IT asset recovery could fund advanced technology, renovations, advertising and marketing efforts, training, support, and so much more.

All enterprise and institutions face time and resource challenges, making it difficult or burdensome to identify and evaluate the true value of their IT assets. It puts them at jeopardy of receiving far less than what their IT assets are truly worth or waiting till they no longer have resale value. If, however, companies partner with a reputable and knowledgeable e-recycler, the business stands to gain more for their effort in recycling IT equipment. Profit multiplies when the e-recycler shoulders the vast majority of the burden in identifying, sorting, testing, valuating and reselling. Areas of the business that benefit from additional cash flow can be better funded when e-recycling is completely understood and become part of the culture.

By partnering with SMS Assembly, companies become better informed on the IT asset recovery process—using it to develop and help fund their IT upgrades—realigning it with their goals and culture. Budget cuts and competitors nipping at heels force companies to get creative when it comes to maximizing their technology and funds. Adding IT asset recovery to everyday business creates a win-win scenario—a company maximizes their original IT spend, recycled IT equipment buyers have access to quality pieces at affordable prices and less electronic waste goes into landfills. There is an immediate need for:

• Desktop, laptop and server memory
• QLogic and Emulex HBAs
• Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron processors
• Cisco and HP networking hardware
• HP ProLiant, Dell PowerEdge and IBM xSeries servers
• Original HP, IBM and Sun drives
• POS hardware from Motorola, Datalogic, Honeywell and Cisco

Anytime a business takes on a large-scale change, such as a data center clean out, upgrades, liquidations, consolidations, relocations, is the best time to contact an IT asset recycler like SMS Assembly. Waiting only means the unused IT equipment is taking up office or storage space and decreasing in value as technology advances.