When you own an asset whether it be an automobile, camera, server, computer, or a piece of medical equipment that supports your thriving business, one day you will need to upgrade.
Why you upgrade can be a personal choice, or a business decision set by your business needs and requirements.
With business IT equipment, your company has invested capital in the asset and depreciated it over time. Disposing of the asset can be a problem however because you may not know where it goes. Not too long ago 60 Minutes did an expose on companies’ assets that end up in e-Waste cities in Southeast Asia. This happens all too often when companies find out that they cannot simply throw the electronics in a landfill, they just let someone take it away sometimes for free sometimes for a fee, and if they were lucky, they might have been paid for it.
In truth, a lot of equipment does still have value in the secondary market. And when you sell it, give it away or pay to have the material taken away, you must have transparency to understand where exactly the equipment is going. The equipment that was found in Southeast Asia was traced to companies who thought they had disposed of their unused equipment in a responsible manner. Imagine their shock to be part of such a damaging expose.
Transparency gives you the ability to track your equipment and know where it is going. Always make sure that you have transparency whenever you are de-commissioning the equipment you own. Insist that the vendor who takes away your equipment provide documentation of exactly where the equipment went. There can be costly fines involved with equipment showing up in the wrong place, not to mention the public relations nightmare of improper disposal.

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