Planning for ITAD Program Success

Companies tend to spend a lot of time considering IT upgrades.  When you’re shelling out a ton of dough for new computer equipment, servers, or mobile devices, you want to be sure you’re making a wise investment that will serve your needs and pay off in use value for years to come.

Unfortunately, you may not put nearly as much thought into what happens to old, outdated, and unused IT assets that you’ve pushed aside to make way for new equipment.  This is a problem, because cast-off assets that contain sensitive data can come back to haunt you.

When equipment is left to gather dust in on-site storage because you simply don’t have time to deal with it, it poses an incredible risk of theft for your South Dakota business.  Whether sticky-fingered employees walk away with it or you suffer a robbery, the data contained on these devices could lead to data breach and/or identity theft.

In other words, you need a plan to ensure that devices you no longer plan to use are dealt with in a swift and decisive fashion, so as to minimize liability.  Here are a few tips to plan for successful IT asset disposition.

Start with Inventory

The place to start when it comes to IT management, including end-of-life-cycle, is with comprehensive tracking measures to ensure you always have visibility into your inventory situation.  The easiest way to track equipment and devices is with a barcode system.  When each device has a barcode affixed and entered into your inventory tracking system (complete with identifying information like a serial number and product description), you can easily check equipment in and out and track where it is at any given time.

When you collect outdated or unusable devices from employees, you can mark them as being in storage until such time as they are disposed of.  With the addition of secure on-site storage and a dedicated person or team in charge of tracking and managing IT assets, you have the best opportunity to minimize the risk of loss or theft.

Create End-of-Life-Cycle Policies and Procedures

Once you have oversight measures in place, the next step is determining how you’re going to round out your IT asset management plan to include asset destruction.  Successful ITAD includes not only appropriate destruction practices, in compliance with consumer privacy laws and industry regulations like HIPAA and FACTA, but timely disposal of assets.

The longer you leave equipment and devices lingering in storage, the greater the risk of loss or theft, so it’s imperative to have a plan that includes timely pick-up of devices by your trusted ITAD service, followed by shredding and recycling of damaged/unusable devices, and possibly wiping and remarketing for usable devices that still hold some value.

Choose a Reputable ITAD Service Provider

Can you go it alone when it comes to ITAD?  Maybe, but most companies simply don’t have the resources to manage this critical task on their own.  This is why it’s so important to partner with a certified ITAD service provider for shredding or wiping.

With secure, end-to-end services that include locking bins for in-office use, scheduled pick-up, options for on-site shredding, chain of custody tracking, and Certificates of Destruction and Recycling for your records, you can rest easy knowing you’ve done all you can to comply with applicable laws and keep your customers and your company safe.

If you need help with ITAD planning, contact the experts at SEAM today at 605-274-7326 (SEAM) or online to learn more about our services and request a quote.