Asset Recovery: The Silver Lining for Beleaguered Wall Street
Financial services firms have always prided themselves on their state-of-the-art communications networks to fuel large-scale electronic transactions and heavy trading. This has meant, in most instances, that network upgrades and expansions were performed using the latest and greatest equipment.
An unwavering focus on bleeding-edge technology often kept most financial services organizations out of the market for pre-owned gear… until now. As this beleaguered segment endures a self-inflicted makeover the reasons for which have been splattered across the headlines for months, one of the changes afoot is growing interest and interaction with the booming market for pre-owned networking equipment.
One aftereffect of the implosion at so many financial institutions, including Citibank jettisoning almost 75,000 employees while such as rivals Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch & Co. also are forced to make deep cuts in response to their irresponsible ways, has been the bounty of last-generation network equipment that has become available. Asset recovery operations throughout the pre-owned market are working overtime assessing, gathering and refurbishing gear that has become surplus as the former “fat cats” trim down in an all-out effort to survive.
Anyone looking for the silver lining in this rainstorm on Wall Street will find it’s that inventories of pre-owned gear are at all-time highs. As inventories go up, prices in the secondary market go down, so there are some amazing bargains to be had. The sweet spot—gear that’s only a half- to one-generation old—is at least 50 percent off what a financial services company might have paid for it.
One of the upsides of the money centers remaking and rejuvenating themselves has been a strengthened relationship with the secondary market. When the time comes for these realigned entities to get back on the buying side, it is not unrealistic to believe the cemented relationships formed on the asset recovery side will come in handy when the time is right for business expansion once again.
Tags: asset recovery, IT budget, pre-owned market, pre-owned networking equipment, savings, Secondary Market