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Latest Updates: IT asset recovery RSS

  • Product Take-Back as a Service (PTaas)


    Tammy 11:30 am on February 19, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: IT asset recovery, secondary market

    Servoterra is the only Product Take-Back as a Service (PTaaS) platform designed specifically for the OEM and their customers. Operating a take-back program today is like generating your own electricity when the service is offered on-demand just by plugging in. Product take-back is costly, inefficient, and leaves most of the product re-market value on the table until now. ServoTerra is innovation just by plugging in.

    Built on Force.com, ServoTerra’s PTaaS platform enables the OEM to establish and control a secondary market channel for remarketable products while eliminating the risk of cannibalizing Sales by eliminating the broker. The secondary market exists for remarketable products as evidence by the highly fragmented, multi-billion dollar, broker controlled asset recovery industry. This industry is designed for the benefit of the Broker, not the OEM. The time is now to transform the industry for the benefit of the OEM and their customers.

    Take-back programs give manufacturers the physical responsibility for products at the end of their useful lives. Approximately 40% of products taken back have value in a secondary market for remarketed products. So why do most OEM’s end up destroying products that still have demand? The reason is OEM control or lack of it in the channel and the risk of cannibalizing Sales.

    Product take-back programs have both environmental and business facets. While much is written about the environmental benefits, little is written about the business benefits. This is largely by design as the take-back programs and the asset recovery industry have competing agendas. Taking the environmental high road makes good PR, but in reality, it’s the business benefits that define success.

    The challenges for the OEM’s in today’s market are:

    • Loss of visibility and control of products on the Secondary Market
    • Risk of Sales cannibalization with Broker control of the Secondary Market
    • Cost to develop, administer, and operate Product Take-Back
    • Difficult to receive market value for remarketable products without control of the Secondary Market
    • Customers do not provide forecasted visibility into future product trade-in requirements.

    The other piece of the equation is the OEM customer. Today, the OEM has limited visibility into the customer’s acquisition or tech refresh planning activities. Our platform allows the OEM’s customers to post their end-of-life assets on the platform as a request for take-back. In addition, the customers can post their needs for new or remarketed products. The result is an optimized supply and demand balancing approach for product trade-back outside the control of the Broker. In other words, re-market those products having re-market demand and send the rest to recycling. This is visibility into customers that the OEM does not have today.

    The benefits of PTaaS are many:

    • Increase revenue while lowering costs
    • Eliminate the risk of Sales cannibalization
    • Remove Broker control of the Secondary Market
    • Provide early visibility into customer product replacement needs
    • Drive leads to the Sales organization
    • Balance supply and demand while getting sticky with your customers
    • Enhance your place in the competitive landscape

    Servoterra offers the only Product Take-Back as a Service (PTaaS) platform designed specifically for the OEM to lower cost and maximize product value over the life-cycle. No matter the products manufactured, your business will benefit from operating a Product Take-Back program in the cloud. The result is improved financial and sustainability performance for the OEM and their customers.

    To learn more write us at contact@servoterra.com.

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  • Is Liquidation Really Asset Recovery?


    Karl Larson 2:38 pm on July 24, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: IT asset recovery, liquidation,

    If you are a business owner or senior manager at a medium or large corporation, you are probably involved in one way or another with the procurement and disposal of your IT assets such as laptops, desktop computers, monitors, printers, routers, hubs, wireless devices, mobile phones, servers, telephony and networking gear.

    These technology devices have become so pervasive in our daily business lives, even handymen, plumbers, electricians, dentists, doctors, real estate professionals have websites and a computing footprint. No matter what the industry or business, or size of the revenue generation, we all require some level of technology to remain competitive in our respective marketplaces.

    How often we upgrade differs from company to company and industry to industry and country to country. Not too long ago in our own presidential elections, Twitter and social networking sites were used in the election monitoring process just as when the Sichuan provence had an earthquake, it was first reported via Twitter and other social networking sites rather than the traditional news networks.

    Why is this important? When technology becomes this pervasive it also becomes mandatory for use not only in our personal lives but in our business lives as well. Ensuring your business is at the top of its game with the latest technology is not an inexpensive proposition.

    In the current recession, companies that can stay alive have done so by cutting back services, lay offs and not upgrading in their normal cycles. The chickens will come home to roost very soon. Business-minded individuals cannot rest when it comes to technology refresh. They must refresh to stay competitive, and when the economy does pick up hiring new people will enable new technology refresh. This is when there is great opportunity to liquidate the old technology or to attempt to gain a higher value back by planning and managing the re-sale event.

    What does a Liquidation event get you? In most cases you may call in a liquidation specialist who uses formulas to calculate the value of your equipment. There is a well known variable formula, and I say variable because it uses such functions as Yield and Transportation but it goes like this:

    Retail value $500
    Multiplier as low as 50% and high as 75%, $250- $375
    Then Mutiply by the Yield (depends upon the commodity but the range is 50-85% for $125-$318
    Then divide by 2, range = $62 – $174
    Minus Transport, again a range 10%-25%, $46 –$157
    A $500 valued product will get you between $46 – $157 a 9% -30% range from high to low.

    Treating these assets as a recovery project as opposed to a liquidation event can reap you higher returns for merchandise that is in good working order, even used. The above calculations take into account only the current market value, not the price you originally paid for the items; so that $500 item could be a three year old server for which you paid $3500.

    Planning the sale of the asset can focus your efforts on real buyers who are looking for a bargain not a steal. They might prefer to purchase the asset from you for $350 because the current market value is $500 this is a 70% return as compared to 30% (at it’s highest) for the liquidation event. You can get as much as double the return in a planned resale event versus liquidation and 5 to 7 times as much as the worst case event.

    To learn more about planning best practices, visit http://www.servoterra.com/seller/?id=b0724

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