Tech Data Unveils New Asset Disposal Initiative

The Clearwater, Fla.-based distributor is offering Anything IT’s Recycle Tomorrow program to VARs who can then resell the IT disposal service to end users.

“The resellers have been requesting this for a while. We’ve seen an increase in government contracts that require EPA [disposal] and security compliance, things like hard-drive scrubbing. Those are being built into into government contracts,” said Barb Miller, director of government and technical services at Tech Data.

SKUs are available for disposal of hardware as well as for removing data from hard drives. Solution providers can attach the service to new product sales or attach it to prior sales. It is available to all Tech Data VARs and replaces a partnership with RetroBox that was only available to members of Tech Data’s TechSelect network, Miller said.

Entitlement to asset disposal is delivered electronically. End users register the product with Fort Lee, N.J.-based Anything IT and can schedule disposal by Anything IT at any point, Miller said. “Usually, the reseller passes through that entitlement to the end user or they could hold on to it. They build it into the fee [of the solution],” she said. “It’s a good opportunity downstream when a technology refresh comes.”

The program was unveiled at Tech Data’s TechEDG conference in Orlando, Fla., last month for VARs selling into the public sector.

“There’s a lot of demand in that marketplace,” Miller said. “But in some places, everything sold now has to have an asset disposal plan. If you’re a business owner or a CIO, you have to face a budget issue if you don’t have this addressed. This [program] allows a CIO to handle that on the front end during the technology purchase.”

Solution provider Green Pages has handled IT disposal for five years, and federal regulations are causing more customers to be concerned about their older equipment, said Tobi Evangelisti, vice president of solutions at the Kittery, Maine, company.

“We’ve worked with other companies, but with Tech Data’s service, you can buy the disposal when you buy the equipment at a cost that is cheaper than at the back end. That gives us a new offering to take to customers,” she said. “It gives us one more thing to talk to clients about. Another piece to add to our breadth and depth offering. It’s all about that one-stop shop.”