India, Nov. 10 -- The next big opportunity for India's IT channel may not come from selling more new devices. It could come from managing what happens after the first sale.

Refurbished smartphones, certified pre-owned laptops, recovered enterprise equipment and organised trade-in programmes are creating new opportunities for distributors, resellers, retailers and lifecycle service providers.

The idea is simple: instead of treating old equipment as waste or an asset with little value, channel partners can recover, renew, resell and support devices through multiple usage cycles.

This is the foundation of circular IT. It connects hardware sales with refurbishment, asset recovery, data sanitisation, resale and responsible recycling.

Circu...