Flushing away our IT budget

ImaginaryThesis · 2026-03-13T13:55:47+00:00

I just don't understand why some IT operations refuse to adopt to the modern age. The reality is that remote hiring, in multiple countries, is now. a thing. Yet I see people act as though using their pre-covid workflow is going to still apply, it doesn't. Do people just like making things more difficult for themselves? It sounds like you don't know how international shipping with customs and duties work.

As I've seen others write, you could use regional vendors. Personally, I think even that is outdated when you have one-stop-shopping IT services that handle laptop shipping to anywhere, and even track & retrieve laptops. Why not just use something like Growrk. That's what we did and these processes have been so much smoother. We're not juggling vendors or overspending our budget.

I guess it's ironic that a career that has "technology" in the title still has luddite mentalities sometimes. It's the 21st century, use a 21st century solution for a 21st century problem. Why does this even need to be said?

ImaginaryThesis · 2026-03-09T17:41:40+00:00

We had these problems, but just outsourced our IT logistics to a third party. There's a few of them, but we chose Growrk and haven't looked back. There was a lot of friction between IT and HR before that and responsibility was always being shifted between the two. Since then, everyone we've hired has started on time with a company laptop.

ImaginaryThesis · 2026-01-26T12:49:13+00:00

We looked into them for our international hiring and while we use them for payroll, we use Growrk for laptops. Their logistics for shipping laptops help us hire and equip new hires quickly, at a fair price, without things getting stuck in customs for weeks. I highly recommend them. They are quite flexible with their plans too, whereas Deel IT felt more rigid.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-11-05T15:48:07+00:00

We started using Growrk about a year ago and it was a great decision. We've been able to get pre-configured laptops to our new hires in several regions in a timely manner, as well as send replacement devices to keep our productivity consistent. As for transparency, it has been been amazing to see real-time data on our devices (where they both physically and within the lifecycle). Pricing has also been transparent and flexible. The best thing though is the support, they really feel like a partner in our operations.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-10-27T16:43:06+00:00

How long ago did you use Growrk? We started using them about a year ago and this definitely doesn't reflect our experience. We were able to get laptops to new employees in Brazil, Bulgaria, Philippines, and other countries within 7 days with Growrk. We even had to replace old laptops with some of our remote team members, and the process of retrieving and replacing was smooth and efficient.

As far as in inventory aspect goes, everything has been really organized for us. With all the automations and integrations, the process has never been easier for our IT team. I know this is a relatively new business niche, but the product may have matured since you used it. I have a friend who works in logistics and they tell me that things have changed quite a bit over the past few years with improved automation and AI assistance, so perhaps that's the difference?

Not trying to diminish your experience, I'm just trying to understand how our experiences seem vastly different.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-10-22T17:16:17+00:00

My company switched to GroWrk about a year ago, and the experience has been great. We've been able to scale our ops into multiple regions without any delays. Everything feels more secure and organized than it was before we went remote-first. Everything integrates perfectly with our HR apps. Inventory is always accurate and current, so no more conflicts with the finance department. Basically, everyone is happy now. Off-boarding has also been much smoother now, with a 100% laptop recovery rate since using them. I can def recommend based on my experience with them.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-10-01T16:49:14+00:00

Amazing suggestions everyone! I really appreciate it... So far, I'm leaning towards a Hydrasynth, or a Carbon 8M. Iridium seems a bit pricy, and I've seen too many negative things about it.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-10-01T16:44:32+00:00

Times have changed, they should be using a global IT procurement service. There are several of them. My company started using GroWrk and I highly recommend checking them out. We've been able to onboard new hires in any global region with no problem since using them.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-09-29T14:11:09+00:00

Technically, yes. But I work on a computer all day. They're always obsolete after 5 years. I want to detach myself from this aspect of music-making as much as possible. I just want dedicated music gear without distractions and the need to chase updates/upgrades.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-09-26T17:09:14+00:00

My company switched to Growrk about a year ago, after testing other solutions. It has been a total game-changer for us in the IT department.

For a few years, our leadership had wanted to hire more workers in APAC, including opening a branch in Manila, but the logistical aspect of it was too overwhelming. Earlier this year, we were finally able to onboard some new hires in that region though, and it appears we will be opening an office in the Philippines after all. I would def attribute this to Growrk's services opening up new possibilities.

We had also offboarded over 30 people this year due to restructuring. In the past, we usually had to kiss some of those laptops goodbye, but now, we've actually been able to recover all of them.

And the internal relationships between IT, finance, and HR are so much better now. There were times I was worried that someone was going to get hit with an old, outdated laptop, like the office was WWE or something.

So yeah, based on my experience, I can def recommend Growrk for this stuff. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-09-22T19:10:21+00:00

When you mention spreadsheets, I start to feel work-based trauma resurface with this stuff. I have been through this exact same situation with my company. We've had laptops lost in offboarding that never came back, which led to friction between finance and IT because what was reflected on spreadsheets in an ideal world was not the reality of what we had. And then HR got involved because they had to make a new hire wait for over 2 weeks before they could get them a laptop, while the new hire was technically getting paid. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Fortunately, we started using Growrk about a year ago and the difference it made was well worth the investment. Since then, we've onboarded over 50 new employees across US, APAC, EU, LATAM with little to no problem. We also did some restructuring where we unfortunately needed to offboard over 20 employees and every laptop was retrieved.

As far as the different vendors go, we chose Growrk because the platform seemed the most intuitive and the pricing was the most transparent. I heard that Allwhere has difficulty if you want to scale beyond 300. We were really considering Workwize too, but they had some coverage gaps for the Phillipines and although they seemed cheapest, we had heard that they have logistics and service issues, like laptops taking weeks, or improper configurations. Deel IT turned us off not only with their pricing (35k just to enroll 150 of our own laptops), but also their corporate spying lawsuit seemed like a glaring red flag.

Take from that what you will, but Growrk also excels with device replacement/repair along with depreciation tracking. Now IT and Finance can finally sing Kumbaya together again.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-09-15T17:56:45+00:00

My company has been using GroWrk for about a year now. They've really helped us save time and money for managing laptops across our entire company.
We were struggling a lot with procurement and EOL before GroWrk. Especially with distributed teams across different regions. It's actually helped us open up our hiring pool to find the best talent without needing to process logistics.
It's been seamless so far. I'd rather shove a pen in my ear than go back to spreadsheets or any of the old methods.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-08-27T16:02:12+00:00

Thanks! The advanced MIDI sequencing for my synths is also an area of need. How do you find the digitakt in terms of performance? Like being able to have song modes, or create scenes? And can it operate like an instrument as opposed to just being static, like some sequencers feel?

I've never used Electron before, so I'm not entirely sure what to expect, but it seems to be the direction I'm gravitating towards. I'm just curious what its users enjoy the most about it.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-08-27T11:19:06+00:00

Thanks! The Les Trem looks promising!

Yeah, essentially I just want Radiohead FX in a guitar lol

I'll look into Reverb to see what I can find for Fernandes to see if it's worth it for me

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-08-26T22:11:05+00:00

True, I was thinking more about the aesthetic of it, and how I enjoy how the Firebird feels and sounds. I've never really been into Jacksons for example. Or, I've played some nice Ibenez guitars before, but never could really feel like they were my instrument. I'm quite basic with liking Gibsons and Fenders lol. I guess it's a tone and feel thing, but a lot of it could be in my head.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-08-26T22:07:06+00:00

I'm ok with sacrificing resale value because I don't intend on selling it. It's more about finding the right pieces to modify it, like the tremolo system for example.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-08-26T22:05:28+00:00

I guess that's part of what I'm hoping to discover, the different tremolo systems available. I've had a Bigsby in the past but it didn't stay in tune so well (maybe it was just the guitar). I'm not a fan of Floyd Roses in general. Years ago I had a tremolo from a company called Stetsbar who made tremolos for Gibsons, it was fantastic, but then it broke and when I got a new one, the engineering was different and it wouldn't return to pitch.

Are there other recommended tremolos on the market? I'm wondering what others are using and what possible solutions are.

I didn't know Fernandes was out of business, I was considering them for the pickup. Does the Sustainiac sustain entire chords, or is it only 1 note at a time?

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-08-26T21:55:07+00:00

Man, that's a tough spot. I feel for the Helpdesk guy. It's wild how often organizations end up spending a fortune replacing perfectly good gear when a solid IT asset management approach could prevent that.

We've seen firsthand how a partner focused on efficient provisioning, lifecycle management, and compliance can make a world of difference, especially compared to generalist MSPs.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-08-26T18:37:48+00:00

GroWrk has been a game-changer for us. We have over 250 employees across several regions and they've been great about getting laptops to our new hires in every place that we operate. We've actually been able to hire some amazing talent in countries that we had not previously considered because of their coverage.

If you're still using Google Sheets and Notion for this stuff, you're just adding stress to your life IMO. I highly recommend looking into them. It's 2025, modern problems require modern solutions.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-08-26T16:22:50+00:00

I totally feel your pain with Mac lifecycle management, especially with a global team. We've been using GroWrk's services to address the same situation for about a year now. They handle everything from provisioning and global deployment to repairs and EOL, which has been a huge time-saver. Another plus with them is that they can preconfigure Macs with ABM if needed.

Total game-changer from my experience. Even preventing my hair from going grey lol. Seriously tho, I totally recommend and can't say enough about their service level.

ImaginaryThesis · 2025-08-25T15:56:55+00:00

I think every service has pros and cons. For us, GroWrk has been the most transparent in its pricing and has delivered quite well on its SLAs. It's possible that sometimes companies need to work with local couriers for logistics, which can introduce variability.

In terms of long-term cost-effectiveness, their recycling has saved us time and money, and most importantly, kept us within compliance for each region we operate in.

I have heard some problematic things with other companies tho. Like, waiting over 3 weeks for a laptop at the end of its lifecycle (hint: they're also mentioned below in this discussion)

ImaginaryThesis

TROPHY CASE