Insight is betting on device-as-a-service (DaaS) to boost its reuse and recovery efforts, its EMEA President has told IT Channel Oxygen.
Asked whether Insight will be following in the footsteps of the likes of Atea and Computacenter and launching a 1:1 device takeback target, Adrian Gregory said Insight’s efforts here will instead be baked into its wider ‘Insight Flex for Devices’ managed lifecycle offering.
“For us it’s part of a wider lifecycle offering,” he said.
“It includes helping customers with the selection of technology, the deployment of that technology and potentially financing. And if the customer wants that to include the ongoing management then it includes lifecycle services, and that includes options around refurbishment and swap out etc.
“We have been developing the proposition so that it’s now much more robust.
“It’s more like a set of Lego bricks, where customers can choose which Lego bricks they want to bring together for a more specific service.”
According to Canalys, the majority of channel partners lack their own inhouse ITAD arm, instead outsourcing the service (with Computacenter, SCC, Stone and Centerprise among the notable exceptions).
To what extent does Insight rely on external partners?
“We do aspects of it inhouse, but then we have a partner community for things like secure wiping and refurb, depending on the country. In some other countries we have that capability ourselves,” Gregory said.
Vendors are not doing enough to financially incentivise the collection of used hardware and reselling of refurbished IT among their partners, Canalys recently asserted.
Gregory, however, said partners have everything they need to make a business out of this independent of vendor kickbacks.
“I’m not sitting here saying ‘if only OEMs could provide that, my life would be complete’,” he said.
“You can put together a collection of partners, which includes financing, security wiping, refurbishment etc, to provide that service today.”
Gregory’s comments come just as IT Channel Oxygen launches a dedicated content hub on reuse and circular IT, the Second Life hub
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
