Blog

6 Considerations When Choosing an Asset Management Partner

In today’s rapidly changing business environment, mergers, moves and technology upgrades often result in unused or idle equipment. With pressure to keep focused on future projects, many businesses invest minimal amounts of time and resources on internal surplus asset programs – leaving potential revenue in the form of equipment and machinery untouched. These surplus assets take up manufacturing floors and cost large sums in insurance and maintenance.

Internal reverse supply chain procedures often lack centralized processes and rely on reaction rather than active participation. Additionally, they are usually bogged down in old-fashioned paper-based methods and hindered by low visibility. While those processes can achieve small success, decades of poor asset management cause organizations to lose their return on investment, impeding growth and negatively affecting the bottom line.

Fortunately, industry leaders have another option: partner with a global solution provider in the reverse supply chain to capture the full value of their surplus capital assets.

However, with such an important task at hand, businesses need to identify the best asset management partner to maximize return on capital assets. Several crucial factors organizations need to consider include:

1. Best practices
Organizations work with asset management partners because of their industry expertise. Business leaders should look for a company that utilizes the best practices developed from years of experience in a variety of industries. Some of these best practices include:

  • Forming plans with your goals in mind: The best asset management partner is exactly that: a partner. Organizations should expect a dedicated team that will work with clients to meet their asset disposition goals. The surplus asset management partner will ensure maximum investment recovery, adherence to zero-waste and sustainability initiatives and efficient redeployment processes.
  • Utilizing data: As technology becomes more important in enterprise environments, the utilization of insightful data will be critical to success. Surplus asset management organizations bring extensive industry knowledge to properly value and dispose of, or resell, surplus capital assets.
  • Engagement: Surplus asset management partners bring key industry relationships that deliver maximum return on their investments by strategically connecting sellers with potential buyers.

http://pictures.brafton.com/x_0_0_0_14089082_800.jpg
Asset management partners help increase the bottom line.

2. Wide range of services
If a surplus asset management service only specializes in one product category, service, or industry, their clients would not be receiving the best service for their investment. With this in mind, it is important for a company to form a partnership with a surplus asset management business that has a comprehensive list of consultative services and proven client success.

The best surplus asset management partners will be able to assist in the management of surplus capital assets, and add value through strategic services for valuation, planning, and disposition. The company will also need to have the ability to support any asset-related needs that a business might encounter in a fast-paced and turbulent enterprise environment. Asset management organizations must facilitate the whole capital asset lifecycle from acquisition to valuation to sale.

3. Variety of marketplaces
The true demonstration of success in investment recovery and asset disposition is in the sales process and recovery. Asset management partners are most useful in helping a business earn back the investment originally made. The best of these companies will support a large variety of marketplaces and auction types which ensures connections with various buyers in search of surplus products, equipment or machinery.

4. Sustainability
Green, sustainable, and socially responsible initiatives are supported by a majority of major enterprises, so it is important for a surplus asset management partner to not only share this environmental focus, but to add value by extending the sustainability missions of your organization. Zero-waste practices, recycling, and redeployment initiatives enable organizations to impact the environment and their bottom line.

http://pictures.brafton.com/x_0_0_0_14108711_800.jpg
The best asset management partners know how to adhere to sustainability initiatives.

5. Disposing of e-waste
The disposition of electronics is becoming more common. However, this process comes with many different regulations and requirements. Asset management partners need to be able to adhere to all these rules, as their efforts will reflect on the primary organization they serve. The best asset management companies will have R2-certified facilities, which make an excellent addition to any corporate social responsibility report.

6. Provides tools that enable future management
The best asset management partner will provide the software necessary to ensure that capital asset management processes are adhered to throughout the company’s existence. Not only does it make the future handling of assets simpler, but it will reduce capital expenditures. Software-as-as-Service solutions are ideal in this case as they can be utilized on a variety of machines and devices, making the management of assets an easy process.

Choosing an asset management partner can mean the difference between success and failure, so it is important to keep these tips in mind before making a decision on which company will handle your organization’s surplus assets.