Client
A financial services giant with 15,000 branches across the U.S. and Canada.
Summary
Great Forest delivered a cost-effective and sustainable solution for the responsible disposal of 12,000 IT servers (cabinets and equipment) from 15,000 branches across the U.S. and Canada.
By leveraging Great Forest’s specialized e-waste and IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) services, the client achieved a 56% cost reduction, saving over $10 million, while ensuring full compliance with environmental standards, data destruction, and maximizing asset recovery.
Challenge
This major financial services firm routinely updates IT servers and decommissions equipment when offices relocate. Previously, they spent $1,500 per IT cabinet to ship the equipment from its various branches back to a central distribution center, where the assets were then sent for recycling. This resulted in an unnecessarily high cost of nearly $20 million for all North American branches. The increasing costs and logistical burden of managing thousands of sites across the U.S. and Canada made this approach inefficient and unsustainable.
Great Forest Solution
The client turned to Great Forest for a smarter, more efficient and cost-effective process. Drawing on our expertise in e-waste management and IT Asset Disposition (ITAD), and on our trusted network of fully licensed and certified e-waste partners, we created a streamlined, localized solution that featured:
- Localized Pickups: We identified reliable, cost-effective and vetted local vendors across the U.S. and Canada to collect IT cabinets and equipment directly from client branches.
- Asset Recovery: The vendors evaluated the residual resale value of the assets and refurbished recoverable equipment for resale, maximizing financial returns.
- Certified Recycling: The out-of-date IT equipment was recycled at certified e-waste processing facilities, ensuring compliance with environmental regulations and client data destruction requirements.
- Documentation: Great Forest provided the client with detailed tonnage data, equipment serial numbers, barcodes, and recycling certificates in an easy-to-access platform to meet their technology lifecycle requirements.
Great Forest’s tailored solution eliminated the need for expensive cross-state and cross-country transportation, reducing logistical complexity and unlocking cost savings.
Results
Great Forest reduced the cost of processing each IT server from $1,500 to $650—a 56% cost reduction, equating to over $10 million in savings for this project alone.
The success of this initiative led the client to work with Great Forest on its ongoing e-waste and IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) needs across the US and Canada.
Key Takeaway: Both e-waste and IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) services are crucial, and choosing the right one, or a combination thereof, can make a world of difference in costs and logistics. Learn more about e-waste and ITAD.
Top image: Taylor Vick, Unsplashed.
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