Podcasts | Compliance Standards LLC: Recent Episodes
Podcasts | Compliance Standards LLC
Transcript: This is David Daoud , principal analyst at Compliance Standards today I am addressing the transatlantic divide on ESG and sustainability. The European Union’s sustainability framework remains the most ambitious in the world, but by late 2025 it has entered a phase of recalibration and political compromise. Facing pressure from business groups, non-EU […]
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The recent news stories of Iron Mountain acquiring the Irish firm Wisetek have created a head-scratching moment. I say “news stories” because I have not seen any formal communication from the company’s press service or from Wisetek itself. The news was reported by the Irish Examiner, EScrap News, and even an obscure French-language news website […]
In this podcast, titled “Deep Dive Into the #Education Sector’s #ITAD Practices,” David Daoud of #ComplianceStandards interviews Garry #VonMyhr, CEO of @TechDefenders on what is happening in the #recycling of IT equipment in #K12 education institutions and in other segments. Tech Defenders is based in #Michigan but has a nationwide reach in helping schools dispose […]
This lecture seeks to profile the current certification landscape in effect in the ITAD sector. Certifications are important tools that allow industries to agree on and adopt a set of common rules that will govern their business. It’s a way to ensure that some common standards are applied. Each industry has a certification rules and […]
Companies operating in various regions and geographies may struggling in finding the proper strategy to handle the decommissioning of their IT hardware. Questions are numerous as to what approach a company must take in ensuring that its recycling functions are compliant and effective. In this lecture, David Daoud of Compliance Standards engages with Todd Zegers […]
The vast majority of companies that we research say data security during the IT asset disposition phase is the primary motive for bringing outside expertise, in this case ITAD vendors, to help them ensure compliance with all sort of regulations, from state and federal to international. Ironically, data security is also the reason why many […]
In this ITAD.Academy lecture series, Compliance Standards Analyst David Daoud hosts IT asset management expert Bo Guilbeault of Starbucks. The discussion focuses on the evolution of ITAD in enterprise, the role it plays in ESG, the challenges of managing such a program and the opportunities ahead. It also addresses the issues facing the supply side. […]
I’m excited to introduce Kyle Marks, the founder of Retire-IT. With nearly two decades of experience, Kyle is a veteran in the IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) industry. In this episode, we’ll dive into the evolution of ITAD, its current challenges, and future opportunities, drawing on Kyle’s extensive insights. We’ll discuss the critical role ITAD plays […]
This is part of a series where we get to know a vendor involved in #ITAD, #recycling, and #sustainability. In doing so, we try to bring transparency to our clients on the end-user side, who may be interested in learning more about current practices from a broader range of industry participants. So I had the […]
In this episode, David Daoud of Compliance Standards hosts Fulton Connor, CEO of Southern California-based Tempus. Tempus is an IT Asset Disposition company that handles corporate IT assets when to end their first lifecycle. The discussion is unscripted and touches on key aspects of the ITAD sector, from customer behavior to the future with AI […]
By David Daoud: I admit I lack knowledge on the EV battery business. It is very distinct from the sectors I’ve traditionally tracked, in particular since EV batteries are not IT equipment. Yet, on the one hand, batteries in general are key components of many important IT systems, and so, of course, when one talks […]
In this episode, David Daoud of Compliance Standards hosts Fulton Connor, CEO of Southern California-based Tempus. Tempus is an IT Asset Disposition company that handles corporate IT assets when to end their first lifecycle. The discussion is unscripted and touches on key aspects of the ITAD sector, from customer behavior to the future with AI and ESG.
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Video Podcast | YouTube ChannelWill tech and economic downturn affect the ITAD sector? Podcast: A booming device market spells good news for the disposition and recycling sectors and for the second-hand market ITAD & recycling in post-pandemic mode: a discussion with Resource Recycling’s Dan Leif The ITAD Market: Surviving the 2020 Covid-19 Deep Freeze
By David Daoud: Earlier this week, HP Inc. was one of the latest tech companies to announce layoffs involving up to 6,000 people of its current 51,000 staff. In the broad PC space, demand has really taken a hit in the third quarter this year in demand contraction that does not feel good for device vendors. Demand for enterprise IT is also challenged. Will that affect the ITAD space? Probably yes, argues David Daoud of Compliance Standards LLC.
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Transcript: This is David Daoud of Compliance Standards LLC, an analyst firm that tracks various segments of sustainability, including recycling. This podcast is dedicated to discussing all things related to electronics recycling, data security, the environment, product design, and much more. For those of you who are interested in how technology, new and old, is shaping our environment and lives, stay tuned and join us to hear about the latest and participate to the debate.
Earlier this week, HP Inc. was one of the latest tech companies to announce layoffs involving up to 6,000 people of its current 51,000 staff. It even branded the cuts as a “Future Ready Transformation Plan.” Wall Street loves buzz words, and companies like to sugarcoat bad news with big words that suggest action. The staff reduction will be staged over time and will take place over a three-year period. Sadly, for many HP employees, this announcement right in the middle of the holiday season, will be one of the hardest periods to come because companies don’t like to announce who’s going to get laid off ahead of time. It will cost HP Inc about $1 billion to pay workers who will be let go and those who will accept early retirement.
Setting aside the mechanics of the upcoming layoffs, the company has been dealing with an awful market environment. High inflation and general uncertainty have resulted in consumers holding back on PC and device purchases or are simply unable to pay for what many consider discretionary spending as the prices of gasoline, bread, milk, rentals, taxes, etc. double, triple and in some cases quadruple. News outlets report HP Inc. looking at 10% sales drop this fiscal year.
In the broad PC space, demand has really taken a hit in the third quarter this year. Remember the third quarter historically tends to be a strong period driven by the back-to-school season, before the final fourth quarter sees another seasonal bump. But after last year’s boom due to the post Covid-19 pent-up demand, PC shipments fell roughly 15% year on year according to IDC and by more than 19% according to Gartner. The numbers are different because each analyst firm has different taxonomies, but the general trend is there. There are many alarming bits of information in the data. Firstly, the number of PCs shipped in 3Q this year was down from last year, confirming that demand overall is shrinking. The sequentially drop is perhaps the most alarming piece of information because the seasonal trend of back to school has been broken. And it does not feel good to be a PC vendor with such market contraction.
To get to these contraction figures suggests that the leading vendors fared really miserably. IDC shows shipments for Lenovo, HP Inc and Dell, the world’s biggest vendors, contracted by double digits, with HP Inc, producing the worst results at -27.8% based on IDC’s preliminary figures.
Obviously, the problem of falling demand is not just affecting HP Inc.. Dell, Lenovo and others in the PC space. We also saw over the past weeks similar announcements made Carvana, Cisco, Lyft and Stripe. Amazon is cutting its workforce by as many as 10,000 workers. Meta, who owns Facebook and Instagram, also announced cuts of the same magnitude, or about 11,000. Twitter, which is going through its own nightmare after Elon Musk took over saw its workforce shrink by some 5,000.
Will that affect the ITAD space? Probably yes. My efforts to get ITAD executives to open up about their situation have yielded mix results. Most acknowledge the worsening environment they are facing, starting with the broad increase in prices for good and services, as the cost of energy began to eat away from profit margins, thanks to Russia’s war on Ukraine. My ITAD contacts acknowledge that logistics and the general supply-chain in their sector have been largely disrupted and global markets, for those operating in places like Asia and Europe, have taken a hit either because China is freezing activities in its cities due to the re-emergence of Covid-19, dampening any opportunity for strong economic growth in the months to come, or Europe facing the potential of a harsh winter due to on going energy crisis.
At Amazon, the cuts will affect the book and devices division, again hinting that hardware sales, as in the HP Inc. case, are not doing well. But many of my ITAD sources say they are sheltered because they have allegedly increased the share of data center decommissioning and cloud services in their revenue mix, essentially arguing that they may be protected from the ongoing downturn as a result. That, however, may be a weak argument in light of what is really happening out there. All the cloud giants, namely Amazon, Microsoft and Google, are also facing pretty difficult business environments, and by extension this would affect the millions of companies they serve and the ones that service them, big and small.
In their latest quarterly results, Amazon Web Services reporting earnings and revenue falling short of expectations. Microsoft’s Azure cloud business also posted unexpected slowdown in cloud growth. Alphabet’s Google cloud business did week, but there is still a great of uncertainty as to the outlook specific to profitability.
So what is driving this sort of tech downturn? Well, we know inflation has been taking a bite out of businesses and their customers. That’s not to say the cloud services and whatever infrastructure used to power cloud would eventually collapse, but analysts within cloud companies are reassessing their outlook and scaling back their expectations, in particular as their sale cycle has elongated drastically recently. Being used to double digit growth, executives in cloud companies are now forecasting single-digit growth in 2023. And that will certainly affect data centers, enterprise servers, storage, and of course semiconductor and microchips. In the long run, though, the move of applications to the cloud will continue and will clearly renew strong growth in cloud computing in the years to come.
Inflation has likely surpassed Covid-19 as the number one source of stress in the tech world. But companies are also concerned by the steep increase in labor cost. While tech companies are now slashing their workforce, earlier this year demand for tech positions in the US increased double digit. Since then obviously we are seeing a reversal driven by a severe inflation.
The news from the IT supplier ecosystem is also echoed by the demand side, specifically by enterprise IT users. A round of talk with IT Managers confirms that most of them have been asked to scale back spending. While earlier this year, these IT managers reported high single-digit increases in spending, they have now brought their numbers to low to mid-single digits. The growth of IT budgets is going to slow down over the coming 12 months, while IT managers are being asked to look for ways to innovate as to compensate for lower budgets. Some of their marching orders is to forget about hiring outside developers, consultants, and services providers. They are told that while cyber and information security business intelligence and cloud platforms remain a priority, they were also reminded that IT managers must rely on their in-house talent to make things happen, and perhaps keep using those hardware devices a little longer.
The public sector is also hit by budget cuts. I spoke to half dozen state IT leaders and they all say they are now either forced to cut spending or convince state bosses to seek more revenues. That latter option is not likely for now due to political reasons. Both administrative and operational services are expected to witness budget decreased above and beyond IT, so are public sector schools.
Now many folks in the ITAD space note that when economic growth slows down, demand for used equipment allegedly rises. There is a possibility that it is the case, but there is no empirical evidence and data suggesting that it is true. All downturns, starting with the 2008 financial crisis, showed that ITAD companies have also struggled to sustain business and suffered from the downturns, resulting in subsequent consolidation of the sector. There is also the fact that the price difference between a refurbished device and a new system has been shrinking and is not so substantial, making it more challenging to convince buyers to endorse used equipment. Full disclosure, with the exception of my phone and tablet, all my PC devices are refurbished.
So if you are an ITAD company CEO or Manager, what do you do in such environment? Well, the first point I want to make is that we are not likely hitting a wall but probably going through a speed bump. It was not so hard to predict that the post-pandemic bump of last year, would inevitably follow with a downward adjustment. Well, we are inside that downward adjustment now, which is further amplified by other problems, such as the economic outlook of China and the energy crisis in Europe.
So the ability to anticipate trends is an important part of the manager’s job. Most of the companies that are reassessing their growth are anticipating lower growth rates and not negative rates. At least not for the moment. And so for now, it is fair to assume that the economic downturn will last about 12 months. And if it shorter, then great.
In the meanwhile, you certainly owe it your shareholders a plan to reduce redundancies and unnecessary cost. This is more of an analytical work but one that will require you to avoid cutting into core activities or too deep. You do not want to face the resumption of a growth period without proper resources, so make sure you protect areas that really matter the most for business continuity. What are these areas? Each company has its own priorities, but skilled staff is probably a common denominator. So much so that IT departments in big banks and insurance firms, airlines and other industries are relying on their staff to innovate to save the day. You may want to follow their steps by shielding the staff that matters the most.
Furthermore, despite the decreasing price gap between old and new, the secondary market remains active, according to some of you in the industry. You do have big concerns about China as a market for used devices, but all folks who track that market agree that there is pent up demand for such products. That’s also the case elsewhere, including in the United States.
So tighten your belt, yes, but stay focused as better days are coming.
By David Daoud: 24 March 2020: Although the coronavirus pandemic has created a Kafkian environment for ITAD companies, the sector has been on that same path and lived similar stress levels before. This year though, the crisis is more pronounced and likely to be more intense. Folks who have been in the industry in 2008 […]
End of August is a good time to assess where a market stands, as we approach the fall season. In this introductory episode, Compliance Standards analyst David Daoud probes Neil Peters-Michaud about the state of enterprise ITAD in an unscripted conversation. Neil is the CEO of Wisconsin-based Cascade Asset Management.
Free access with registration: This podcast is a discussion between David Daoud and Barbara Scott, VP of Research and Consulting at Compliance Standards. The discussion centers around ITAD within the context of ITAM. Send us your feedback at inquiries@compliance-standards.com. Click here to listen or download the MP3 version