Buying and leasing IT equipment: how to manage it best?

What is IT procurement?
This is the process of :
- Optimize IT procurement flows;
- Acquire new computer equipment;
- Manage your computer equipment in an optimized way.
As IT plays a central role in most businesses today, IT procurement is just as critical to improving your performance and limiting the risks and hazards associated with this process.

Why is IT procurement important?
The benefits of procurement for your business
Let's first focus on the reasons to invest in structuring your IT procurement.
This brings you many benefits, including:
- Productivity gains : more efficient computers save time for employees, who can do more work for the same amount of time;
- Quality improvement : up-to-date computers allow to install all the necessary applications, thus being able to carry out more qualitative and advanced work;
- Cost reduction : Procurement focuses on buying the best equipment at the best price. Negotiating the price of your IT equipment generates a direct benefit for the financial performance of your company;
- Savings : by managing your inventory and your IT assets, you ensure that you do not end up with an over-stock of IT equipment (any tied-up inventory represents a financial cost, potentially significant depending on the volume of your inventory).
The 4 key steps of IT procurement
Let's look at the main steps to set up and optimize your IT procurement.
Sourcing, first of all, consists of identifying and selecting the best suppliers, then negotiating the prices and overall conditions of the service.
Procurement also involves planning the necessary supplies, in terms of quantity, quality and delivery times.
It also involves managing the administrative and practical aspects (purchase orders, goods receipt procedures, choice of contacts, etc.).
Finally, equipment configuration is also an essential step in the process, in order to provide turnkey tools to your teams.
Rzilient supports this configuration, for example via our Zero Touch solution via Apple Business Manager.
How does Rzilient facilitate your IT orders?
With a delivery time of only 10 days, our platform allows you to order your equipment from a vast catalog of referenced suppliers.
Then, we take care of the configuration of your machines, to ensure a complete service.
Calculate the cost of your inventory and your computer park
IT procurement is also concerned with the stock of IT equipment available in your company.
This is an important question, because a stock costs money!
Any equipment held in inventory is not productive, by definition.
It is better to invest the immobilized cash in the form of stock, or to use it to finance the development of your company (marketing, R&D),
business development, etc.), so that this money "works" for you!

Solutions to optimize your IT procurement
How to optimize your IT procurement?
One of the key solutions is to automate the entire process as much as possible. This prevents stock-outs, saves you time
This reduces the risk of errors and oversights and simplifies the overall decision-making process.
It is also useful to be able to rely on a panel of suppliers, rather than being dependent on a single partner.
This is what Rzilient offers with the help of its catalogs, listing our various suppliers, selected for their professionalism and the quality of their offer.
Finally, to properly manage a process as complex as IT procurement, it is crucial to have a tool dedicated to IT asset management.

Mathieu Maréchal