Even though environmental awareness in general will always be unfinished business, most industries have already successfully created several, often very admirable initiatives as a significant part of the corporate strategies. However, when money green crosses paths with nature green, priority of said initiatives quickly gets manipulated in order to facilitate financial goals.
I have been in the hardware remarketing business since the very beginning of my professional career, nearly 7 years ago. What still strikes me the most, is how many companies with a strong need for latest technologies -or just with an exceptionally large IT infrastructure for that matter- have rather limited control on their infrastructure lifecycle management.
I ran this decommissioning project for a corporate account of mine with global presence and thousands of active workplaces, ambitiously aiming for a uniform network- and telecom environment worldwide. They acquired the newest IP phones available at that time from the vendor directly and had them installed throughout all their locations worldwide. By the time they were finished doing so, procurement opened up a new tender already, because the regarding phones were about to become EOS/EOL.
By offering companies the opportunity to extend the lifetime of the technological environment they need, we participate in the circular economy of products and have direct impact on the industry’s footprint and sustainability.
To revert to my opening statement, I think it’s safe to say that the world’s leading vendors in our industry value environmental counsciousness highly when developing new features and innovations and they will probably keep doing so in the future as well. Aware of the competition of the well established refurbished market, the industry’s manufacturers (rather lately) decided to adopt this market segment themselves too together with their partners, trying to indoctrinate the clientele into working with certified refurbished products only, instead of these of ‘unauthorised’ resellers. A recent article I found on this particular approach of partner distribution, you can find here:
Know what you are buying – Buy genuine
Independent Resellers vs. Dependent distribution
As an ‘unauthorised’ reseller, I’d like to zoom in on a few things mentioned in this article, starting with the usage of the term ‘unauthorised reseller’:
By refurbishing used equipment from companies with a strong need for the latest technology, we actively participate in reducing the global ICT industry’s footprint by relocating working products instead of throwing them away. We are capable of doing this, because these large IT users are often pushed by vendors to renew, while in fact the actual lifetime of a product could be way longer. Especially for companies with a smaller need of the latest technologies, like the one mentioned here before.
Taking the first sale doctrine into account, the concept of remarketing could be simplified to buying products from a first party, adding value of warranty and selling said products to a second party. It is a simple and legit business agreement and thus authorised by law. Therefore, I prefer the term ‘independent reseller’.
While thinking about it, we might as well introduce ‘depending’ resellers for the regular chain, as these ‘authorised’ resellers literally depend on the price –read profit– strategy of the vendors. At the same time, in this so called grey market of ours, specialized traders are constantly looking for the best fit in between an end user’s need and his regarding budget, matching the market’s organically existing demand & supply.
Next, Taute refers to an increased risk of counterfeit and losing out on quality and service, while just as in regular distribution there are plenty of quality labels available in the independent industry to verify a product’s quality or a company’s best practices. It’s just as easy to check references and request audits.
I do agree with Taute on being careful in sourcing, as there is a huge presence of one-man-shows not capable of offering any warranties on the products they sell heavily underpriced.
However, these frauds are just as little affiliated with the professional independent market we are in, as they are with the regular distribution.
“Know what you are buying – Buy smart”
What we advise all our customers to do, is to buy smart: What do you really need to buy new with support, and for which part of your IT procurement can you control your budget and participate in the circular economy?
