Don’t Let Your Company Phones Turn into Expensive Bricks

 “We’ve got loads of old phones lying around. We’re not sure who they belonged to, but we can’t even get into them now.” Sound familiar? If you’re running a small business, the last thing you want is wasted investment. Yet, you may have a bunch of company smartphones shoved to the back of a cupboard somewhere – long forgotten, activation-locked, or worse, never even switched on. That’s thousands of Pounds just sitting there, doing nothing. 

Over the years I’ve spent working with SMBs on mobile strategies, let me assure you that this is more common than you think. Whether it’s a lack of clear usage policies, no mobile device management (MDM), or simply no plan for what happens when employees leave, the result is always the same: expensive bricks in a drawer.

In this article, I’ll break down how and why this happens — and more importantly, what you can do to stop it. You’ll get clear, actionable steps to avoid common pitfalls and make smarter decisions about your mobile estate moving forward.

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What This Blog Covers:

• The Curious Case of the Forgotten iPhone
• Three Reasons Your Phones Are Collecting Dust
• The “Brick” Problem
• Why SMBs Can’t Afford to Ignore This
• That Work Phone Could Be a Security Time Bomb
  
• Let’s Rescue Those Phones!
  
  

The Curious Case of the Forgotten iPhone

Many companies hand out mobile phones without defining a clear purpose – and this is exactly where the problem often starts. No one asks why you’re buying corporate phones in the first place. Is it to separate work from personal use? Improve customer service? Support remote workers? A lot of the time, the reasoning sounds something like this: “Oh, Janet’s got the iPhone 15 Pro ... maybe we should get everyone one!”

But what happens when that device lands in the hands of someone (like an Android diehard) who’s already happy using their personal phone? It gets shelved or banished to the confines of the back of a dusty drawer – never to see the light of day again. To be fair, it might be turned on once or twice, maybe configured halfway. After that, it’s left unused because no one took the time to think about the day-to-day practicality of owning a second device (let’s face it, one phone can be cumbersome enough).

Three Reasons Your Phones Are Collecting Dust

In my experience, there are three main reasons why phones become expensive bricks:

1. No Clear Strategy

As mentioned earlier, there's no clear mobile usage policy, which I’ve seen especially in small businesses. Companies buy phones without thinking through how they’ll be used, who’s responsible for managing them, or how they’ll be returned when people leave.

2. Wrong People in Charge

Often, it’s finance handling mobiles instead of IT. Nothing against finance — but configuring and managing phones isn’t their wheelhouse. It’s like asking the sales team to secure your Wi-Fi. In this case, the person in charge doesn’t fully understand device lifecycle management.

3. Phones Aren’t Treated as Business Assets

To be perfectly candid, most SMBs don’t treat mobile devices like the business-critical assets that they are. They’re seen more as “nice-to-haves”, but they’re not. They’re endpoints — just like laptops — and they need the same level of care, policy, and protection.

The “Brick” Problem

Here’s the worst part: even if you try to reissue the phone later, you might not be able to.

Let’s say someone – we’ll call him Tim – does use the phone (I mean, it’s an iPhone 15 Pro). When setting it up, he uses his personal Apple ID or Google account and gets the job done with no issues. But seasons change, and Tim leaves the company. You think: "No problem, we’ll reissue it." Only you can’t. You see, the phone is now locked via Apple’s Activation Lock or Google’s Factory Reset Protection. In other words, it’s bound to Tim’s account. Without those original credentials, you can’t reuse, recycle, or resell it. That’s when your £1,000 device becomes an expensive paperweight.

It’s shockingly common and was everywhere during COVID. During the panic, companies bought so much tech just to stay operational and keep their people connected. I get it, those were unprecedented times, and the world of work literally changed overnight. However, all this gear was bought with no mobile policy or deployment programmes – “get it done” was pretty much the plan. This resulted in heaps and heaps of hardware waste: locked, unusable, unsellable phones. And even though the pandemic is thankfully behind us (touch wood), this is still a huge issue.

Why SMBs Can’t Afford to Ignore This

For smaller businesses, this isn’t just about waste and damaging the environment: unused phones can put a serious dent in your (already stretched) budget. I’ve seen SMBs buy 10 iPhones in a year, only to lose all of them to activation lock issues or leaver mismanagement. That’s a £10,000 loss, not including the hours spent manually configuring each device. At 40–60 minutes per phone, that’s a lot of time and money down the drain.

Let’s break this down with a very rough calculation:

• 10 iPhones, not redeployable = £10,000 lost
• 1 hour setup per phone = 10 hours of wasted labour
• 50 locked devices? That’s £50,000 just sitting in your cupboards

Dizzying numbers, I know – and that doesn’t even include lost productivity, security risks, or recycling headaches. And yet, most small businesses don’t realise this is happening. Or worse — they assume it’s just the cost of doing business. If you’ve had similar thoughts, know this: it doesn’t have to be.

Larger organisations, on the other hand, often have defined policies and mobile management tools, but even they aren’t immune. If they’re not using deployment programmes or MDM (Mobile Device Management) solutions, they still end up with locked, unusable devices.

That Work Phone Could Be a Security Time Bomb

Remote and hybrid work are here to stay: more mobile workers means more cyber security risks. Think of every unmanaged phone as an open back door into your business. SMBs, in particular, are prime targets — precisely because they’re less likely to have MDM or security protocols in place.

If you think about it, your phone has access to sensitive business data, emails, contacts, and customer communications. So, if company phones aren’t being properly managed, your business is exposed to security, privacy, and compliance risks. Moreover, small businesses don’t treat mobile devices like the business-critical assets that they are. They’re seen more as “nice-to-haves” — until those perks become liabilities and not assets.

Let’s Rescue Those Phones!

If you’ve got unused, locked, or forgotten phones collecting dust instead of generating revenue, you’ve come to the right place. With the right strategy, tools, and support, you can recover lost value, reduce risk, and take control of your mobile tech.

The reality is, small businesses are especially vulnerable here. With limited time, lean teams, and no dedicated IT resource, it's easy to let mobile strategy fall to the bottom of the list. But that’s exactly how phones end up bricked, activation-locked, or misused in the first place.

I’ve worked with many businesses just like yours — helping them avoid these mistakes, secure their devices, and make smarter decisions. Whether you’re grappling with the BYOD conundrum, corporate device confusion, or simply don’t know where to start, I’m here to help.

From a quick audit and setting up MDM to reviewing your mobile policy and exploring buy-back options — Babble’s got your back.  Let’s have a chat and turn that drawer full of bricks into a streamlined, secure, cost-effective mobile strategy.