District Management

Schools save money with refurbished computers


Because “end-of-the-line” equipment is brand new, CDI reuses the packaging it came with, including the Styrofoam. Its box for laptops is made of cardboard and is completely recyclable.

“One thing we do that I think is spectacular is that we package in such a way that the equipment gets there in one piece with the least amount of boxing possible, but adequate protection—and it lowers the cost,” Bristow said.

Any equipment that failed the test-and-audit process gets either resold or recycled.

“I’m able to get any product recycled properly,” Bristow said. “We don’t send any computer equipment to landfill, ever. That has never happened in my entire career here.”

He added: “We find a way to sell it to someone who is going to refurbish it at a level we don’t want to, or they are going to shred it down to the core product.”

Customer service

CDI has been steadfast in improving its support and customer service for education customers.

“Since 2008, our customer service policy has been as simple as this: Any educational client that asks us to do something, we will do it as long as it’s not illegal. That is it,” Pikar said. “So we’ve had customers who have phoned us and asked us to pick up units that we didn’t sell them … [and] we picked them up and replaced them. We did that without any questions.”

That’s typical of how CDI handles its warranty issues: It does whatever is easiest for the customer, with no extra costs incurred. “We feel whatever you pay for that computer should be all you ever pay for that computer,” Pikar said.

And customers can’t say enough nice things about CDI and its used computers. “The service means a lot,” Burns said. “I’ve been 100-percent pleased.”

A former eSchool News editor, Cara Erenben is now a freelance writer living outside Toronto.

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