Inventory Management touches down in Europe

The world’s first cloud IT closet is going global. We’ve just expanded Inventory Management to a host of European countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. If you have employees in any of these countries, you can now ship, retrieve, warehouse, and reassign their devices—100% remotely!

This expansion sets Rippling apart as a truly global solution for your international teams. 

Beyond the global basics

Today, there are many global systems for hiring and paying your employees and contractors abroad. But most of these providers are missing the IT essentials, and those that do offer IT services often rely on third-party integrations. Those integrations are tedious to manage—and if you need help, you have to go through a subcontracted vendor instead of the primary one. 

We think this is a massive oversight. How can a solution claim to solve global work without addressing IT? Getting employees set up with the right equipment, in the right systems, is crucial for making them productive. A key part of that process is retrieving devices from departing workers and assigning them to new hires. 

But the things that make this task so cumbersome in your home country are amplified abroad. You have to ship a prepaid box across borders—potentially across oceans. Assuming you get the device back, you have to assess whether it can be reassigned and then store it. This is a headache, but more importantly, it creates security risks. 

This is why expanding Inventory Management to Europe is critical. Now, you can truly support your global workforce by getting employees set up abroad with the tools they need—while keeping security strong, costs down, and employees happy. 

How it works

With Inventory Management, we have warehouses on the ground in the regions where you operate, and Rippling manages the back and forth with your employees. So, if a new hire starts in Europe, you can ship them a device from one of our warehouses in one click in Rippling. No need to order a new laptop or lug a used one down to DHL. 

Later, if that employee leaves your company, you won’t have to manage the retrieval. As soon as you complete the offboarding process in Rippling, we’ll send the departing employee a box with a prepaid label and instructions. You can track the status of devices in Rippling, meaning there’s no need to reach out to employees and ask whether they’ve mailed back the device. 

As soon as we retrieve a device, our warehouse staff checks it for damage and logs its condition. You can monitor your entire fleet in Rippling, clicking into specific devices to see if they’re in stock and what their condition is. 

It doesn’t matter how far your devices are from HQ. You’ll have full visibility into where they are, which ones are assigned, and whether or not they can be reused by future employees. This is a novel approach in the world of global workforce management with many benefits. 

Security

The most important benefit is security. Without Rippling, it’s a logistical nightmare to get employees to return their devices. As a result, many companies will simply forfeit devices instead of retrieving them from employees. It can be especially tempting when an employee is in another country. But this creates significant security hazards. 

Leaving devices in an unsecured location puts your company at risk. A former employee having access to sensitive company information poses a risk, but risks compound if this information falls into the wrong hands.

Inventory Management ensures that each device makes it to a secure location and is wiped, so inconvenience never leads to forfeiting a device.

Cost savings 

Inventory Management also has significant cost savings for your business. In addition to creating security risks, forfeiting a device is wasteful. 

According to third-party research conducted by Benenson Strategy Group, non-Rippling customers spend four or more hours trying to retrieve laptops, screens, and keyboards, then wiping data and reinstalling operating systems to get devices ready for each new employee. As employees come and go, this becomes an expensive use of your IT team’s time. 

With Inventory Management, you can do what takes other businesses four hours in a minute—and only decommission devices that are actually ready to be retired. See how Frogslayer made inventory management seamless, error-free, and scalable with Rippling.

Admin and employee experience 

Last but not least, Inventory Management significantly improves employee experience—for both your IT team and your international employees. For your IT team, it takes a frustrating, time-consuming task off their plates, so they can focus on more impactful initiatives. 

Employees benefit from using up-to-date, high-performing devices. It can be detrimental to your employee’s productivity if they have a device that is slow and past its best-before date. Rippling monitors the status of all your devices, assigned and unassigned, so you can quickly swap out a suboptimal device.

For example, you could build a workflow that automatically notifies you if the battery health of an employee’s current device deteriorates past a certain point. Then, it’s a breeze to retrieve that device and reassign the employee one from your warehouse. This makes it easier for IT to provide a great experience for employees, even when they can’t be everywhere. 

The future is global

Bringing Inventory Management to Europe is just the start. We’ll continue expanding country coverage, so global workforces can take advantage of the security, cost, and experiential benefits. 

In the near future, we’ll also be globalizing our other core applications, like Corporate Cards. At Rippling we believe supporting a global workforce is far more than just hiring and paying. It needs to be a holistic experience that supports every part of the employee lifecycle. 

With Inventory Management live in Europe, we’re bringing that vision to life.

Disclaimer: Rippling and its affiliates do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide or be relied on for tax, accounting, or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, accounting, and legal advisors before engaging in any related activities or transactions.