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Once known for responsive reps and reliable procurement, CDW was a go-to vendor for Microsoft licensing and ITAM. But recent reviews from customers raise concerns across delayed responses, unreachable account managers, and declining service for mid-market customers. For example, one customer review reads:
“The service support and product timelines have been declining.”
While CDW still champions a “holistic” approach to ITAM with structured processes and continuous improvement, their execution often stalls across five vendor hand-offs, with no guaranteed SLAs and slow response times. Customers report multi-week delays, chat queues that time out, and sales reps who go radio silent.
Without a dedicated account manager, you’re stuck chasing quotes, waiting 30+ minutes on hold, or watching the session drop just as you reach the front of the queue. Freight markups, opaque contracts, and stacked fees further inflate costs.
Most of the lift still falls on your internal team, from chasing down devices to managing returns manually. It leaves SMBs (especially teams under 500 employees) to question whether CDW is still built for them.
This guide will help you explore smarter, more scalable alternatives.
You’ll see how platforms like Firstbase deliver complete lifecycle automation (not just shipping), global SLA-backed service, and predictable per-seat pricing, along with other alternatives built for various geographies, team sizes, and lifecycle needs.
See how Firstbase automates your entire device lifecycle in our 3-minute interactive product tour.
For IT Managers and Endpoint Operations teams, deployment means not just juggling multiple vendor portals. It’s also about having to find and manage different vendors in every global region.
That means repeating the same procurement, shipping, and return processes across 3-5 local providers, each with their own timelines, SLAs, and invoices. The result: 5+ hours wasted per remote worker on logistics, plus long gaps in device delivery where no vendor is available.
Multiply that by your headcount and you’re looking at dozens of wasted workweeks annually, all on tasks that deliver zero strategic value.
The pain compounds when a device stops working or fails.
Yes, coordinating a loaner or replacement for a remote employee hundreds of miles away often means prolonged downtime. And when employees resort to personal devices out of frustration, it opens the door to security risks that leadership didn’t sign up for.
In short, downtime + DIY = security risks.
Now, compare that to a zero-touch, lifecycle-automated model. Every step (from procurement to provisioning, delivery, swap, and return) is handled by a global platform, not internal headcount.
Instead of filling out forms and tracking shipping, the IT issues a replacement and auto-initiates a return in just a few clicks.
Better still, centralized device visibility cuts overbuying, while audit trails and tracking give leadership clarity on where every asset is (and where money was saved).
The result: 2–4 hours per device saved, $163K recovered annually and 30% fewer devices lost or unaccounted for.
The five platforms below offer stronger lifecycle capabilities, better visibility, and models that scale with modern, distributed teams.
Firstbase combines a SaaS platform with global physical operations to eliminate IT logistics challenges for remote and hybrid teams. Unlike traditional resellers that merely ship boxes, Firstbase provides end-to-end automated lifecycle management from procurement through retrieval.
The platform delivers quantifiable results: companies with 1,500 employees save an average of $163,000 and 2,300 hours annually after implementation while achieving 97%+ equipment retrieval rates in under 30 days.
Firstbase integrates with the tools you already use (such as Jamf and Intune for MDM, Okta and Azure AD for SSO, BambooHR and Workday for HRIS integrations), so you can automate without reworking your IT stack. See the full list of integrations here.
Firstbase supports fast-growing teams (250+ employees) and global enterprises (5,000+ staff), delivering the most value for companies with:
Here’s what users think about Firstbase:
SHI is a global IT reseller and services provider serving thousands of organizations. With over three decades of experience, SHI offers a broad range of lifecycle services to support IT procurement, device deployment, training, support, and recovery. Their approach is vendor-agnostic and geared toward helping IT teams run frictionless operations across industries like healthcare, finance, and education.
Enterprises that already rely on multi-vendor procurement workflows and need a large-scale IT partner to manage hardware logistics at volume.
Here’s what users think about SHI
Unduit offers a unified global IT asset lifecycle platform that enables companies to buy, deploy, manage, retrieve, repair, resell, store, and recycle devices across 100+ countries. Designed for global scale, it provides a unified ecosystem with mini-apps that integrate with HR, ticketing, and MDM systems, all aimed at automating key IT lifecycle workflows.
Mid-to-large enterprises (especially those in healthcare, education, logistics, and retail) with global teams seeking centralized IT asset control and lifecycle automation.
Here’s what users think about Unduit
Lendis is an IT and office equipment rental platform tailored for hybrid teams across the EU and UK. Its operating system, LendisOS, enables fast, zero-touch onboarding and offboarding for distributed employees for both tech and ergonomic furniture. Companies can procure, deploy, track, and retrieve devices and furniture without building in-house logistics systems.
EU- and UK-based companies looking for an all-in-one platform to manage IT hardware and office furniture for distributed employees.
Here’s what users think about Lendis:
PC Connection is a Fortune 1000 IT solutions provider serving enterprises, SMBs, and public sector customers across the U.S. They offer a comprehensive suite of IT lifecycle services designed to streamline procurement, provisioning, deployment, and end-of-life management. And these offerings cater to organizations that need large-scale device rollouts, secure system configuration, and reverse logistics.
Mid-to-large organizations with complex provisioning needs, high device volumes, and a preference for tightly integrated supply chain and IT lifecycle services.
Here’s what users think about PC Connection:
Choosing the right partner means finding a platform that simplifies execution and brings the full lifecycle (cost, logistics, security)into one cohesive view.
Below, we break down what to look for across Finance, HR Ops, and Compliance, and how Firstbase eliminates the gaps that most alternatives leave behind.
Too many IT procurement decisions are made in silos, and CFOs and Finance Leaders usually bear the fallout. From unpredictable freight and restock fees to fragmented vendor relationships, costs quickly spiral out of control.
For example, as per our internal report employers lose $4,072 per employee per year to issues like hardware delays, aging batteries, and failed logistics. When calculated across your headcount, this “invisible” cost of misaligned operations becomes impossible to ignore.
Without visibility into the full device lifecycle, finance can’t model per-employee TCO with any accuracy, and IT teams can’t confidently scale without blowing the budget.
Now, what you should look for is a platform that aligns IT execution with financial planning with predictable, all-in pricing and transparency into real-time spend.
Firstbase does this by design:
You get one platform, one invoice, and one predictable cost per seat, no matter how many regions you scale into.
Even offboarding is optimized: companies save $125 per departing employee when offboarding through Firstbase instead of doing it in-house.
New Relic's IT Program Management team discovered that eliminating these hidden costs delivered substantial value:
“There's value to be gleaned from automating processes from both a headcount and operational overhead perspective – and also the value you're squeezing out of the assets that you're spending thousands of dollars on. Now, we're able to maximize that in having a centralized, full lifecycle management program in place with a platform like Firstbase.”
- Thomas Olson | Manager, IT Program Management, New Relic
For HR and People Ops teams, a new hire’s first day sets the tone for retention, productivity, and culture. But when a laptop shows up two weeks late, that first impression is already broken. Especially in remote teams, delays like these can derail onboarding, leave hires idle, and create avoidable stress.
The problem is scale: IT teams now ship to dozens of regions, not just one office. That means they’re managing couriers, customs, and tracking. The cost you pay here is poor Day‑1 experience for new hires.
Instead, you need a lifecycle partner that owns the entire delivery and retrieval process, with guaranteed service-level performance across regions.
Here’s how Firstbase solves this:
Companies have seen a 75% reduction in manual effort to manage lifecycle logistics. 700+ laptops retrieved that would’ve otherwise been lost or written off.
Retired devices are a silent threat. Because when IT lacks the time or tools to dispose of them properly, compliance slips, and resale value goes down. Worse, every unretired laptop sitting in someone’s closet still holds sensitive company data, exposing your business to breaches, fines, and missed financial recovery.
When evaluating alternatives, look for a platform that guarantees certified data sanitization, automatically documents every asset disposition, and provides end-to-end visibility into device handling.
Firstbase secures offboarding at scale.
Bonus ROI
Firstbase lets you recover value from end-of-life devices. Eligible assets are remarketed, and Firstbase issues resale credits quarterly, lowering your total cost of ownership.
At this point, what you need is an upgrade to your workflow, not an alternative. CDW doesn’t offer clarity where it matters. Their SLA disclosure warns, “Delivery timelines may vary by vendor and region.” That means: zero guarantee. Customers also report 30-day billing surprises for storage they never approved.
But with Firstbase, you get locked timelines and locked pricing before you even click ‘order’.
Not just that, Firstbase offers full-lifecycle automation with global SLAs, audit-ready compliance, and per-seat pricing that scales without surprise costs. The platform also eliminates the hidden time, security, and financial risks traditional resellers can’t address.
Reclaim 2,300 hours annually with 300-person IT teams and achieve 97% device retrieval rates. Book your 30-minute Firstbase demo now to see how.
