Research Survey: Appetite for repairs amongst businesses

The survey was conducted in the run up to International Repair Day on October 19th. It coincides with requests for Right to Repair to become part of the political agenda and for repairs skills to be developed alongside Net Zero skills to address the nature and climate crises. 

“Repair, reuse and making the best use of precious IT assets long term is a big part of the business ethos of Techbuyer,” said Techbuyer CEO Steve Sexton, “We are proud to work on research that develops these habits as well as products and services that enable companies to achieve it.” 

Electronic waste is the fastest growing waste stream on the planet. In 2022, 62 billion kilos of waste was generated globally according to figures from the Global E-waste Monitor in 2024, on track to reach million tonnes by 2030. It presents a significant risk to human and wider environmental health. On the production side, electronics contain around two thirds of the 34 critical raw materials listed by the EU as either in short or politically unstable supply, some of which will run out within decades. The manufacture of electronics is also has a high water footprint and electricity requirement, with knock-on effects on greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. 

Encouragingly, circular habits seemed well established in the companies surveyed. Extending the lifespan of equipment through reuse, re-allocation, repair and refurbishment addresses these issues, whilst at the same time giving the world to develop recycling technologies than can recover rare earths and precious metals at scale. Trends amongst the 53 organisations that responded suggest: 

• Refurbished purchase is becoming mainstream: 61% of those surveyed use a mix of new and secondary market supplies or refurbished equipment 
• Usage cycles are becoming longer: the majority of companies surveyed (69%) refresh their IT hardware every 3+ years.
• Most companies (79%) cascade assets between users, suggesting efficient resource utilization. Companies that don’t, lack the know-how.
• Majority of companies perform repairs or upgrades internally. The respondents who answered no, lacked in-house expertise to do so.

However, there were areas of improvement suggested by the initial survey: 

• 67% of large and medium companies are using tools to monitor and manage IT equipment while nearly 63% of SMEs do not use any tools or software for proactive monitoring and management of IT equipment.
• Half of the companies sell their IT hardware for refurbishment or recycling, indicating an opportunity for more cost retention for those that don’t.

Opportunities for improvement suggested by the research team are increased use of management software in SMEs, sector education on repair and reuse and further research into pain points. 

“According to this survey, 63% of SMEs are not currently using tools or software for proactive IT equipment monitoring. This presents an exciting opportunity to apply advancements in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data analytics, which could enable real-time monitoring at the component level. We are currently working with Techbuyer to develop such software as part of an Innovate UK funded project,” stated Professor Dhaval Thakker, Professor of AI and IoT at the University of Hull.

This survey is conducted as part of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project between Techbuyer and University of Hull as part of developing a circular IT asset management solution.