The excitement around HP’s new warranty-backed refurbished PCs is “palpable”, its Northwest Europe MD Neil Sawyer claimed as he revealed the two ways it will take the new offering to market.
HP earlier this month rolled its portfolio of certified refurbished PCs to the UK under the HP Renew banner.
The PCs come with a one-year warranty and can be recognised by the addition of an “R” to the HP product number.
“We intend to scale with it in a big way”
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, Sawyer said HP recently presented its Renew proposition to “10-15″ CIOs and CTOs from British businesses representing various industries.
“The excitement was palpable, and we’re talking about large household names,” he said.
“They were very energetic in giving their feedback on how we can improve the proposition and ensure it’s embraced by their workforces. We intend to scale with it in a big way.”
HP will take Renew to market in two ways, namely through a select group of partners who have invested heavily in their own circular IT infrastructure, and then secondly to the wider channel via distribution.
Computacenter, Advania and SCC are among those in the first group, the latter of whose involvement in the programme has already been trumpeted (see below). This route will technically be known as ‘HP Certified Refurbished’.
As IT Channel Oxygen has reported, Computacenter last year set a 1:1 device recovery goal, while SCC is looking to quadruple device takeback via its Recyclea arm. Advania’s recent opening of a new Swedish centre with the capacity to refurbish up to one million devices came in response to “long-standing demand” from its clients, the Nordic reseller said.
“They [the partners mentioned above] are investing a lot in their own infrastructure, and we want to partner with them to utilise that infrastructure so they can have the Renew products as part of that ecosystem,” Sawyer said.
“They can work with their customers to bring that HP product through their supply chain and make sure that product is certified and refurbished for use, so that they can then resell it back out into their customers and potentially other customers that might work with adjacent partners.
“We see a British ecosystem being built as a consequence of this.”
“The second side of it is making sure this portfolio, or programme, is available to every partner,” Sawyer added. These units will be refurbished by Hungarian partner Flex.
In an industry where the financial plumbing is geared towards selling new, how is HP incentivising its UK partners to take Renew to market?
“Reselling our Renew product – as well as reselling our new products – will fall under the Amplify programme so that it meets those commercial incentives that of course partners need,” Sawyer responded.
“We have absolutely legitimised the secondary market.”
“That’s exactly where the Renew portfolio can fit in”
HP Renew packages together not only the warrantied refurbished PCs, but also a number of other HP programmes that have existed for years, including in areas such as recycling and ITAD.
It is already live in the US, India and France (where the demand for second-user devices has been spurred by a new public sector mandate).
The UK second-user market was given a vote of confidence by DEFRA, which is refreshing its device estate with remanufactured devices.
Does this make the public sector HP’s prime target for Renew in the UK?
“That regulatory requirement being met in France turns it into an opportunity in other markets,” Nancy Powell, HP’s Sustainability Manager for UK&I and EMEA, told IT Channel Oxygen.
“Once you have that use case and see how it’s transacted and how it’s worked, you can then adjust it and deliver it in different markets.
“We need to talk to public sector procurement teams because there’s a lot traction there, but it certainly doesn’t limit itself to that.
“Plenty of enterprise customers are looking to innovate and test different things, and also have employee populations that would be enthused to see their employer putting that option into the mix.”
The ability to blend new devices with a percentage of refurbished ones will appeal to “many” organisations with an eye on cost control, Sawyer added.
Those with lots of contractual workers could prove an ideal use case for Renew, he claimed.
“We’ve seen a lot of work very recently with the likes of Computacenter and SCC where they want to provide a continual contractual service for these devices,” he said.
“That’s exactly where the Renew portfolio can fit in, because people are returning devices that are being refurbished, renewed and redistributed out to another employee who might be part of that same organisation.”
IDC figures showing that around six million HP laptops are refurbished each year outside of the HP business “gives you a sense of the marketplace that’s to play for”, Powell added.
“Definitely a first for our industry”
The arrival of OEM-certified refurbished devices was eagerly awaited by partners we spoke to for the Oxygen Second Life campaign last summer.
So how novel is HP Renew?
Lenovo announced its Certified Refurbished programme last February. The UK was one of the first markets to go live, it confirmed.
“In the UK, we offer business-grade laptops that are professionally refurbished and backed by a Lenovo warranty – not a third party’s – supporting both performance and sustainability,” a Lenovo spokesperson stated.
“Each device is rigorously tested, certified, and backed by a one-year warranty, with options to extend coverage up to three years and add additional support.”
Sawyer, however, characterised HP Renew as “the most progressive and most embedded in terms of the channel partners we’ve been working with”.
“We want to utilise their infrastructure where appropriate but, importantly, make sure we can provide those units through our distribution partners so that all reseller partners can utilise it,” he said.
“[HP Renew] has been around in different guises for decades. But legitimately bringing a product with the part code, which is warranty backed and that’s had the components checked and verified through certified sources – that’s definitely a first for our industry.
“And then integrating it as part of the commercial partner programme that thousands of our partners recognise and interact with is a huge step forward for us.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
