IT Asset Disposition

How to Perform a Self-Assessment for IT Asset Disposition

IT Assets disposition is an important function in any organization irrespective of its size or nature of business. This is a critical function that should be given its due importance and should be handled at the top levels of your organization’s administrative setup.

All your IT Assets disposals should be strictly conducted as per a well-thought-out and carefully executed IT asset disposition plan. Planning for your ITAD plan calls for honest, thorough, and all-inclusive self-assessment for successful IT Assets disposition.

The self-assessment of your IT Assets disposition is the Most Basic Step Towards a Successful ITAD process.

It is one of the most important functions that should not be ignored and be carried out with utmost sincerity and careful consideration of all the processes, assets, and resources necessary for the proper ITAD process completion.

Here, let us see how we can conduct the self-assessment for the IT assets disposal process and how it can be used for the due formulation of your ITAD plan for your organization.

Why You Need To Make A Self Assessment

You already know that your sensitive data is at risk!

As said earlier, the Self-assessment is the basis on which your entire ITAD plan is built, and hence it is the starting point for all your ITAD activities. Your Organization cannot afford to work on the ITAD front without a well-defined plan as it leads to very severe consequences.

By doing so, you will be putting your sensitive data and other important assets at risk. They may be forced to spend more amounts of money. The organization’s entire reputation and business may be called into question when your organization fails to take necessary actions while undertaking ITAD processes.

Retiring and disposal of unnecessary IT assets cannot be taken lightly, and your organization should be very proactive in handling all the tasks related to this important function. You need to take control of the entire process and conduct it so that your organization’s ITAD process aligns well with the Organization’s basic goals and specific objectives for proper and scientific disposal of the unwanted IT Assets.

The self Assessment you are making for formulating your ITAD plan should be able to give your organization proper ITAD in every one of its locations and should cover each one of the IT assets you want to dispose of. This plan should give you the best way of conducting all types of ITAD functions, covering any quantity of IT assets every time they are taken out for disposal.

The Self-Assessment is Made With the Objective of:

Reducing the total cost of ownership of the IT assets: Though the IT Assets that are marked for disposal have reached their zero value in your books, they still bear some inherent value that can be realized by properly disposing or repurposing them in the used IT assets market. By aiming to realize this value, however small it may be, it may lead to considerable amounts that can be used to buy required new IT assets, thus bringing down the overall cost of ownership of the IT assets.

Provide for 100% Data Security: The self-assessment will clearly outline the things that should be taken care of for ensuring corporate security, compliance, and risk management in your organization. This will enable you to put in place the right types of policies and the procedures to follow them. This prevents unnecessary data exposure and data breach. With the proper records for each phase of the ITAD process, it will be possible to secure the entire process with foolproof actions for the overall success of the ITAD process.

Compliance with Environmental Regulations: When you dispose of unwanted IT Assets, you need to comply with various Federal, State, and Local environmental laws and regulations. You need to execute the right environmentally safe ways of disposing of your IT assets and should have enough proof for the same. The self-assessment you are making will clearly outline the things that should be done to comply with all the laws and regulations besides really disposing of your IT assets in a way that does not cause any damage to the environment.

Make your ITAD process as efficient as possible: ITAD is one of your organization’s critical functions that always should be done in the right ways. The system put in place for executing your ITAD functions should perform as efficiently as possible utilizing all the available resources and act to focus more on their primary role assigned to them in the ITAD plan.

To make all these possible to achieve, your organization should first identify the core needs that should be satisfied, the priorities that should be fulfilled with the full knowledge of the present state of your ITAD program.

When this is done, you can easily use the self-assessment to determine the gaps between your needs and the priorities that should be met so that your ITAD process progresses without any internal impediments giving you the best possible results.

Key Steps To Be Taken For ITAD Self Assessment:

1. Identify All the Stakeholders:

in your organization and include all of them in each one of your locations and business units – class of stakeholders to be included are:

IT executive management
IT asset management
Compliance groups
Risk management Professionals
IT/data security teams
Sustainability/green teams
Datacenter management/operations groups
Facilities
Logistics
Finance
Purchasing/supply chain/vendor management

For carrying out a thorough Self-assessment, identify each group/team of stakeholders and get the relevant facts and data from them regarding the ITAD process that should be carried out.

Identify and interview all stakeholders about their priorities and the objectives each of them expect to be fulfilled by the ITAD process.

In addition to this, also get their views as to how

To lower the TCO
To undertake ITAD on a no-cost basis.
To get higher returns on the remarketed equipment.
To ensure data security.
To ensure Environmental compliance.
To speed up the Asset disposal process.
To generate the necessary reports and audits.
To commit the right resources and reduction of risks associated with the process.
To ensure proper chain of custody.
To create the right standardization across the organization.
To define the right goals be for the ITAD program?
To address the concerns they have
To fit their priorities with that of the overall priorities and goals of the organization.

2. Analyze And Understand The Current State Of Your ITAD Program:

While doing the self-assessment for the new ITAD plan, study your current ITAD program and the processes that are being currently conducted under it.

Find out the details of the distribution of the assets throughout your geographical footprint, the assets that are leased out and sold, and the people managing these processes, and who are all the persons who are responsible for the ITAD decisions, and take stock of the budgets, payments for the ITAD and the returns that are received from remarketing. Also, take note of the historical data on the earlier ITAD projects.

3. Assess Your Current Vendors And Contractors:

When your current ITAD processes are conducted through third-party vendors and Contractors, consider the success of the ITAD process also depends on their reliability and ability to deal with the required data destruction, remarketing, and recycling of unwanted IT assets.

See if they are offering the following services that are necessary for the

o Resale or remarketing of the unwanted IT assets Remarketing/resale

o Wiping of hard drives and other data containing assets for data sanitization

o Physical destruction of data holding assets wherever necessary

o Recycling of IT assets and also take into consideration the terms of the service level agreements your organization is holding with the vendors

4. Identify And Find The Goals To Be Achieved For ITAD:

After considering all the above identify the goals that should be achieved with the overall priorities that will satisfy all the stakeholders. They should be framed in such a way that the goals identified agree with the overall strategic goals and other processes that are necessary for the successful running of the business.

5. Prepare The Report Of Your Assessment And Analyze The Data:

Upon completing the above steps, you will be armed with all the relevant data regarding the ITAD process. Now prepare a self-assessment report and analyze the data to determine what things should be done to put your ITAD process on the right track.

With this report, you will be able to find out the current status of your ITAD process, its strengths and weaknesses, the goals and objectives that should be achieved, identifying the gaps in the action plan, and the recommendations for strengthening and fine-tuning the ITAD process.

When you partner with StarPc Excess, you can do a thorough ITAD self Assessment and get all help needed for a fully compliant and effective ITAD process in your organization.