RDC was formed in 1991 starting life as a computer auction business operating from a small garage unit in Chelmsford, Essex. Across the next 6 years the business ran 365 auctions in 15 sites across southern England. In 1998 we began the conversion of the business to a service model with our first customer – the Environment Agency.

The initial core service proposition addressed four main customer concerns – data, security, electrical safety and waste recycling. Each asset given a PAT test to ensure it was safe to sell and then securely data-wiped. RDC was the first company in the UK to ensure that no un-processed waste went to landfill, and direct remarketing of products was added to the auctions to ensure that the best value for the functioning assets was returned to the customer. This integrated model won our first Queen’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation in 2000.

During the same year, RDC was acquired by Computacenter and the new service model took off. All areas of the service proposition were enhanced, better wiping tools, redeployment, less than 2% landfill recycling, international partner network, full ISO accreditations and two more Queen’s Awards. We moved premises eight times in 15 years culminating in the acquisition of the Tekhnicon building in Braintree, Essex – 355,000 sq ft on a 22 acre site, making us the largest circular services business in Europe.

Turnover rose to $100 million in 2014 and at the beginning of 2015 the business was sold to Arrow. As the final element of roll up of circular businesses, RDC became part of the largest circular services platform in the world. After a 10 year program of acquisitions, in July 2019, Arrow announced its decision to exit from this market and Computacenter re-acquired the business in August.

Gerry Hackett, the original founder, returned to manage the business and RDC was re-launched in August 2019. The core elements of the RDC proposition remain un-changed,but reconfigured as a Global Circular Services package at the heart of Computacenter’s expert services proposition. Our aim is to tackle all of the issues that confront our customers arising from end of life IT with a comprehensive service package – Logistics, Asset Management and Value Generation, delivered across all product areas – Workplace, Datacentre, Mobility and throughout the globe through Computacenter and partner sites.