2018 Benchmarking Report shows stabilized IT asset refresh rates, increased resale values

MADISON, Wis. - Jan. 25, 2018 - PRLog -- Cascade Asset Management (Cascade), a national leader in providing full service IT asset retirement solutions to businesses and institutions, published its 4th Annual Benchmarking Report today.  The study provides information and research on security, environmental, and financial issues related to IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) and the more general IT Asset Management (ITAM) discipline.

This report was built from data compiled through (1) a November 2017 survey that represented organizations with a collective employment of more than 160,000 people; (2) an evaluation of more than 259,000 assets processed for refurbishment and recycling by Cascade in 2017; and (3) a review of related industry research.

In the survey portion, enterprises said they expect an increase in IT hardware purchases in 2018, with more than two-thirds (67.4%) indicating they plan to spend the same or more on devices this year, up from 57% reporting the same or increased spending in 2017. Fewer companies plan on a decrease in spending this year compared to any of the previous 5 years reported on in earlier surveys. At the same time, this year's survey does not show any significant changes in refresh rates for laptops or desktops.

Participants also report a 23% increase in employees using their phones for work last year. Company issued smart-phones also grew by 20% last year. That being said, over 46% of respondents say they do not have an internal process in place to destroy data on smart phones and tablets.

"While there continues to be a rapid adoption of mobile devices in the workplace, our clients don't plan on giving up their workstations any time soon," said study author, Neil Peters-Michaud. "Retirement of desktops and laptops is staying fairly consistent, but there is an increase in the disposition of smart phones and the data center equipment that supports them."

A number of survey questions were asked about asset tracking and data destruction during the retirement phase of the devices. While nearly 88% of enterprises track all laptops, desktops and servers through their lifecycle, only 57.1% track all smart phones. While many companies do perform some type of data destruction process on hard drives before they leave their environment, 56% of respondents didn't perform any onsite media sanitization or destruction themselves and instead outsourced all data destruction work to Cascade. Eleven percent of survey participants noted they "hit the hard drive with a hammer" to destroy the data.

Cascade also reviewed the resale activity of more than 259,000 assets it refurbished and resold in 2017. In general, the average resale price for a sold asset grew by 13% in 2017, compared to 2016 dollar amounts. The average laptop resale price was up 7.3% (to $83.59) and deskptop PC values were up 13.4% (to $44.83). This is despite average refresh rates staying fairly flat from year to year.  Meanwhile, there continues to be a strong demand for network gear, with enterprise level switch resale values up an average of 7.9% last year (to $100.72 each).

On the other hand, average smart phone resale values were down 21% last year to $44.10 and LCD monitors declined by a rate of 3.8% (for 19" CCFLs) to 24.1% (for 24" LEDs).

The survey also asked Cascade customers about their understanding and interest in industry certifications. Forty-six percent of respondents said the ISO 9001 (Quality) certification was either critically, very, or somewhat important to them.  Next came the NAID security certification (44.4%). The e-Stewards Standard for Responsible Recycling  and OSHAS 18001 health and safety standards were listed as important to 42.2% of respondents. The responses also revealed the challenges of marketing these certifications. Despite the fact that Cascade is an e-Stewards firm and puts the logo on nearly all of its documentation, 40% of respondents said they don't even know what e-Stewards is.

Neil Peters-Michaud will share more details from the report and survey during a Webinar hosted by the International Association of IT Asset Management on Tuesday, February 20 at 2:30 ET.

The report is posted online at: http://www.cascade-assets.com/2018report