COVID and Tech Refreshes

March marks the first anniversary of the mass exodus from the workplace to the home office due to COVID 19. Some employees took their computers home; others were given laptops and tablets and left their workstations in the office. Additional assets such as VPN software, collaboration software, conferencing software, and security software were purchased to support the remote office. IT plans were turned upside down, including technology refreshes.

The tech refresh is a critical strategy for multiple reasons, including:

• Keeping up to date with technology means the hardware is ready for new software releases and happier employees, contributing to employee retention.
• A predictable year-over-year budget allocation. Organizations that do not have a tech refresh policy often find themselves refreshing technology only when budgets permit, resulting in an aging tech portfolio.
• A predictable disposal cycle can maximize the organization’s assets’ resale value and optimize its ITAD vendor relationship.
• Reduced TCO
• Taking advantage of the latest built-in hardware security features

COVID impacted even the best tech refresh plans for one or more of the following reasons:

• Budgets are frozen due to economic uncertainty
• Impact on standards – who will return to the office can impact the current standard. Will the laptop replace the desktop standard?
• Supply chain disruption
• And finally, executing a refresh during the pandemic didn’t happen

What’s next?

Organizations with a refresh standard will be forced to play catch up and not just purchase new technology. Changes to IT standards and employee office locations will need to be addressed. This may include assessing the following:

• How changes to IT standards affect the purchasing obligations with the vendor
• Changes to on-boarding and off-boarding for remote workers
• Impact on disposal processes and ITAD vendor services in support of remote workforce

Organizations without a refresh standard may find temporary shortages of hardware assets due to the economic recovery. It may be a good time to re-assess your position on a tech refresh policy.

Conclusion

Now may be an excellent opportunity to re-vitalize the ITAM program by conducting a tech refresh policy review. The review needs to include IT, IT service desk, IT security, procurement, finance, IT vendor management, end-users, and the ITAM executive sponsor. The review should include:

• Review and consolidate IT standards
• Update internal supply chain logistics to support remote users
• Re-assess if end-point devices should be managed internally or by a third party (Device-as-a-Service)
• Update disaster recovery plan based on lessons learned from COVID
• Implement cloud asset management if cloud services were adopted because of COVID
• And finally, remind the organization as to why ITAM is a core competency!