A leasing company is aiming to take the channel by storm with a rental/re-rental model enabling resellers to lease both new and refurbished PCs.
Serving schools and midmarket customers including law firms, InnoVent UK is on a mission to triple its UK partner base.
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, InnoVent Head of Sales Martin Cadby said the current memory shortage is fuelling demand for refurbished devices.
Despite this, leasing providers generally aren’t offering second-life equipment, he claimed.
“Where we’re different to everybody else is the whole piece around our rental and re-rental model,” he said.
“The channel finds that really interesting, because they can offer second-user equipment on a financing solution alongside new equipment.”
“Everybody wins”
All three parties – namely the reseller, the end user and InnoVent UK itself – stand to gain from the model, Cadby stressed.
The process begins with InnoVent selling the end user a new device but undercharging them via a residual value lease, which Cadby said will typically make it cheaper than paying for it in cash.
After three or five years, InnoVent then takes the equipment back on the reseller’s behalf, putting them in the box seat for a new sale.
“There’s a definitive engagement point at the end of the lease,” Cadby explained.
“We’re very open with the reseller around that. We give the customer 90 days’ notice, but we also give the channel partner that, giving them an opportunity to build a recurring revenue model.”
Next, InnoVent refurbishes the equipment to an “as good as new” standard, before typically selling it again under another lease.
“Everybody’s winning from a green perspective, so it’s truly the circular economy at work – as opposed to just doing a finance transaction and leaving it out there,” Cadby added.
This process puts clear water between InnoVent and other leasing providers, Cadby claimed.
“We’re not like every other leasing company,” he said.
“We believe we’ve got absolute value to add to the channel partners over and above, ‘give us the lease, mate, what’s your rate, mate?’ – because that’s just a sales aid.
“The channel demands more than that, and that’s what we can do.”
“Matching the device to the job”
Founded in 2013 and part of a larger, 200-employee South African group, InnoVent UK turned over almost £16m in its fiscal 2025.
It generates around 60% of its top line via reseller partners.
The London-based outfit is looking to roughly triple its partner base from 12 to 30-40 by engaging more resellers that carry hardware and turn over more than £20m, Cadby said.
“Typically, lease attach rates are anywhere between 1% and 6%, so to make it worthwhile to the partner – as well as us – they have to be sizable. That’s why we are pitching into those mid-tier resellers,” he explained.
InnoVent’s sweet spot is the midmarket and higher end of SMB, where Cadby says refurbished devices deliver enterprise-grade reliability without the remanufactured price tag.
“We have a number of mid-tier law firms, agricultural businesses and schools that take refurbished devices from us. That’s our proving statement,” he said.
“There’s a lot more risk with having a remanufactured device, because you’re putting way more new components or different components in,” Cadby added.
In the wake of the current components crunch, customers are becoming more open to taking a mix of new and refurbished devices, Cadby said.
“One high-end law firm we’re talking to will give the partners and lawyers a brand-new Microsoft Surface at £1,200 a throw, but for the support staff it’s perfectly acceptable to use a three-year-old refurbished Dell device,” he said.
“Where we’re a bit different is we include a three-year warranty with our solution, and you can lease it as well.”
“Work with us”
Every reseller will have an existing relationship with a financing company, whether that’s an OEM, bank or distributor, Cadby acknowledged.
This means InnoVent’s only option is to remove an incumbent.
“It’s a saturated market, so it will always be a displacement,” Cadby said.
“The message to the channel partners is, quite simply: work with us.
“Work with us to provide that end-to-end circular economy solution, which drives the benefit to them of firstly a financing proposition with a residual value; secondly, a sustainable proposition; and thirdly, the opportunity to truly build recurring revenue.”
This article was produced in association with InnoVent UK and is classified as partner content. What is partner content? See more here.
