You know the drawer. The one full of outdated devices no one wants to touch.
Each retired device could be a compliance violation, a lost asset, or worse, a data leak.
When organizations overlook secure offboarding, mobile risk grows quietly in the background. Devices sit untracked, still linked to corporate data, or with active cellular lines.
That is where Zero Touch Mobility (ZTM) by Samsung SDS comes in. ZTM automates the entire mobile lifecycle, including secure decommissioning and device return, all within a ServiceNow native environment.
In this guide, you'll read through five practical best practices to reduce mobile offboarding risks while ensuring end to end security, without creating more work for IT.
1. Automate Device Unenrollment and Data Wipe
Manual unenrollment is one of the most common failure points in mobile offboarding. When a device is missed in the process, corporate data can remain accessible, especially if the device is still logged into cloud apps, synced to company systems, or accessible via remote tools.
With ZTM, offboarding workflows are triggered automatically based on HR or IT events like terminations, role changes, or hardware upgrades. Devices are remotely wiped, removed from UEM and EPP systems, and logged in real time.
ZTM supports secure data deletion and access revocation in a single automated flow . This ensures that no device is left with unencrypted data or misconfigured policies, and IT teams are not stuck chasing down assets post departure.
2. Centralize the Offboarding Process
Too often, device returns are handled through emails, spreadsheets, or ad hoc requests. This creates gaps in tracking and increases the chance of ghost assets, devices that are technically owned by the organization but operationally lost. Research shows that up to 15 percent of corporate mobile devices go unaccounted for at some point in their lifecycle. At enterprise scale, that can translate into millions of dollars in lost hardware, unused licenses, and unmanaged security risk.
ZTM integrates directly with ServiceNow to centralize every step of the mobile offboarding process. Devices are assigned return labels, carrier lines are closed, and status updates are tracked from the moment an offboarding event is triggered. This ensures that no critical step, including retrieval, unenrollment, or line cancellation, is overlooked.
By acting as a centralized control tower for mobility offboarding, ZTM eliminates swivel chairing across tools and provides full visibility across departments and locations. IT and procurement teams gain a single system of record for all offboarded devices, while finance and security teams benefit from clear audit trails and predictable outcomes.
Centralizing mobility offboarding not only improves accuracy and accountability, but also makes handoffs between HR, IT, and finance more efficient, traceable, and resilient at scale.
3. Proactively Monitor End of Life Devices
Not all devices reach end of life due to employee departures. Some are replaced due to upgrades, breakage, policy refreshes, or planned hardware refresh cycles.
ZTM provides centralized lifecycle visibility by aggregating device and service status from connected systems, including UEM platforms, carriers, logistics providers, and asset records within ServiceNow. This allows IT teams to identify devices that are approaching end of life, no longer assigned to active users, or marked for decommission based on lifecycle status and business rules.
With this visibility, IT can take action earlier instead of waiting for a user request or discovering too late that a device was overlooked. Offboarding workflows can be initiated based on lifecycle milestones, ensuring devices are returned, reused, or retired in a timely and controlled manner.
This proactive approach supports both cost control and sustainability initiatives by reducing unnecessary replacements and ensuring devices are either redeployed, repurposed, or recycled securely. ZTM also helps Mobility Managers right size inventory planning by aligning procurement and recovery decisions with actual lifecycle data rather than assumptions.
4. Automate Compliance and Audit Trails
For many organizations, proving that offboarding actions occurred is just as important as taking them. Audit trails are essential for regulatory compliance, internal controls, and breach response.
ZTM automatically logs every action taken during offboarding, from wipe confirmation to return shipping to SIM cancellation. This simplifies regulatory compliance and internal reporting.
Whether you are following HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2, or your own IT governance standards, ZTM makes it easy to demonstrate secure device handling and provides an immutable record for audit and legal review.
Compliance teams can access logs instantly, without relying on IT to pull reports or recreate timelines after the fact.
5. Reclaim Devices Securely and Efficiently
Returning devices can be one of the messiest parts of the offboarding process. Devices go unreturned, lost in transit, or sit in drawers for months. That is both a cost and a compliance issue.
ZTM automates reverse logistics with built in return label generation, carrier coordination, and chain of custody tracking. Returned devices are either wiped and redeployed, sent for repair, or securely disposed based on company policy.
This not only reduces waste and hardware spend, but also ensures every asset is accounted for and every endpoint is properly decommissioned.
ZTM can be configured to integrate with third party logistics providers or internal IT asset disposition (ITAD) processes, offering flexibility while maintaining centralized visibility.
Turning Mobile Offboarding into a Business Advantage
When mobile offboarding is handled manually, the impact extends far beyond IT. Asset records fall out of sync, finance teams continue paying for inactive devices and lines, and sustainability initiatives lose visibility into what was reused, recycled, or written off.
When the five offboarding best practices outlined above are automated and centralized, organizations can close the loop across IT, asset management, finance, and compliance. Devices are reclaimed instead of forgotten. Inventory is updated in real time. Buyback, reuse, or disposal decisions are tracked and auditable.
By connecting mobile offboarding into broader business systems, organizations can reclaim or repurpose assets instead of overordering, trigger return or buyback workflows automatically, track the full device lifecycle, and report accurately on reuse, recycling, or secure destruction. Offboarding becomes a measurable, accountable part of the mobile lifecycle that supports financial control, compliance, and sustainability goals.
Why Secure Mobile Offboarding Matters More Than Ever
Think back to that drawer full of outdated devices. Each phone sitting there represents a missed offboarding step, a lingering security risk, or a cost that never got reconciled.
In a remote and hybrid world, that drawer is no longer confined to an office. Devices ship directly to homes. IT teams have less physical control. Without consistent offboarding, even a small percentage of missed devices can translate into data exposure, subscription overspend, incomplete compliance documentation, and lost assets at enterprise scale.
The five best practices in this guide work together to eliminate those risks. Automated unenrollment and data wipe protect access. Centralized offboarding prevents ghost assets. Proactive end of life monitoring ensures devices are not forgotten. Audit trails prove compliance. Automated recovery closes the loop.
Zero Touch Mobility by Samsung SDS enables these practices by embedding mobile offboarding into the same ServiceNow workflows used for provisioning and day to day device management. Offboarding is no longer an afterthought. It becomes a controlled, visible, and secure end to the mobile lifecycle.
When offboarding is done right, the drawer stays empty.
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