Promoting ethical best practice and managing risk from IT asset disposal

In 2007, international regulations changed regarding the disposal of electric and electronic equipment forcing organisations in both the private and public sector to meet rigorous compliance procedures. Companies continue to fall foul of reverse logistics suppliers picking up equipment free of charge and then selling on the scrap. However, this short-sighted approach means that they are putting themselves at risk and could be liable for harsh financial penalties.

A shift in the industry towards more stringent auditing, together with a major contract win for Network 2 Solutions (N2S), presented the company with the perfect opportunity to review its approach to IT estate management.

New solution adds real competitive advantage
After carefully evaluating the marketplace, N2S selected the UNITY Estate Management solution from its distribution partner Avnet for the quality of the product and the competitive advantage it offered. Designed to help organisations better understand and manage their IT estates, Avnet Services EMEA’s UNITY Estate Management’s powerful software engine tangibly drives down costs and boosts efficiency.

According to Andrew Gomarsall, Director of N2S, “UNITY Estate Management enables us to visualise the complete lifecycle of every asset from a single, unified platform. Working with Avnet also means we can tap into its commercial acumen and jointly develop client proposals that deliver hardware and software technology and real business value all from one place.”

The Estate Management solution allows organisations like N2S to now obtain the status of a customer’s infrastructure from the latest scan data and highlight end of life and end of support for key assets. This means the customer can take proactive steps and ensure the asset base is always in support and current.

Strategic partnership that promotes ethical best-practice
N2S plans to promote the circular economy by actively seeking to re-use the equipment it decommissions on behalf of customers, rather than simply disposing of it in line with Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) regulations. By working with Avnet and deploying the UNITY Estate Management solution, N2S is able to provide tangible evidence of how customers are measuring up to the latest WEEE directives.

Transparent, tangible business results
Since deploying UNITY Estate Management, N2S has noticed a series of considerable benefits. For instance, the transparency of the system recently enabled N2S to detect 2,500 disks and other IT items across more than 1000 sites that were no longer in use but not listed on the customer’s original inventory. This was the equivalent of charging 20,000 smartphones 24 hours a day, every day and once identified resulted in a huge power saving for the organisation. The same customer recently undertook a year-long network transformation programme and N2S achieved just 0.1 percent in landfill compared with the 29 percent quoted by some of its competitors. The significant financial savings the project yielded was shared by the customer and N2S and subsequently re-invested elsewhere.

Andrew Gomarsall concluded, “There are exciting times ahead! It’s all about communicating up and down the channel, encouraging the sharing of ideas, developing innovative technology and introducing business models that make everyone successful. By working towards a circular economy, we will all benefit from less waste in landfill and a healthier commercial environment.”