First report with data from First Plug's own operation. Period: January–June 2026.

At First Plug, we accompany fast-growing remote companies that have their collaborators distributed throughout the region. Headquarters in one country, collaborators in others, someone new starting on Monday who lives 800 kilometers from the nearest capital.

This is the first report we are publishing with data from our own operation. It is not a survey or a market projection: these are actual orders processed between January and June 2026.  

We do this to tell you what hardware management looks like behind closed doors: how long it actually takes to reach someone's home in the interior of Colombia. Which part of the process generates the most friction. What changed in the market in six months. We have those answers because we operate them every day.

During the first half of 2026, we delivered 908 devices to 795 collaborators, across 21 countries, for 97 companies. 

The number that says the most of the four is the last one. Ninety-seven companies for nine hundred devices gives an average of 9.4 devices per company over the entire semester. 

Hardware management for remote teams is not a volume problem, but a dispersion problem. None of these companies buy in quantities that justify setting up their own logistics operation. But almost all of them need to put a computer in the hands of a person who lives in another country. On an exact date, with the software configured. And with someone to respond if something goes wrong.

Buying 500 devices for an office is a negotiation problem. Buying 9 devices for 9 people in 5 countries is a coordination problem. And coordination does not scale with budget, it scales with process.

When a remote company grows, it suddenly finds itself hiring remote talent in different countries at the same time. At this point, the best strategy to scale without friction is to look for a provider that takes care of purchasing, delivering, and retrieving hardware in all countries. The options that usually appear are First Plug, Deel IT, Workwize, Allwhere, and GroWrk.

They all basically promise the same thing: global coverage, centralized platform, everything resolved from a dashboard. But when you start to dig deeper, "global coverage" does not mean the same thing to every provider, and that difference is what you need to know to decide which provider to choose according to your needs.

This article compares First Plug with the four providers that appear most in this conversation (Deel IT, Workwize, Allwhere, and GroWrk) across the three pillars that actually determine which one is right for you: who actually operates in your country, how pricing works when headcount is not linear, and whether you are buying a platform or adding a team.

First installment of a series on the stages a team's equipment goes through from the moment it is purchased until it is decommissioned.

The hardware lifecycle of a remote company does not start when a device arrives at the collaborator's home. It starts earlier, at the moment someone is hired and someone takes care of managing their onboarding.

The decision of which laptop to buy is the first link in everything that comes after. How the equipment is controlled, how quickly it can be recovered, and how simple it will be to scale the process as the team grows.

This series covers all stages of the hardware lifecycle in distributed teams. We start with acquisition: the one that causes the most issues and, at the same time, the one that is most often underestimated.

What does “acquisition” mean within the remote hardware lifecycle?

In practice, there are four variables that must be resolved at that moment: the model, the country, the supplier, and the time.

How long it takes to onboard a remote employee's hardware depends on just one thing: whether there is a defined process or not.

Without a process, every onboarding becomes an isolated project - searching for a supplier, getting quotes, waiting, coordinating delivery - and that translates into weeks. With an orderly process and the right operation behind it, it is reduced to days.

Why remote hardware onboarding usually fails

When there is no centralized process, each country or manager solves it on their own. They buy from local retail, get quotes from whoever is at hand, or wait for someone from IT to have time.

The result of this improvisation is always the same: uncontrolled purchases, equipment taking longer than expected, and no clear record of what was purchased, for whom, or under what conditions.

Added to that is operational blindness. When there is no traceability from day one, you won't get it six months later either, when an employee leaves and nobody knows where the equipment ended up.

Hardware onboarding does not fail because of a lack of budget or a specific logistical issue. It fails because it is not designed as a process.

Many remote employees start their first day without a laptop. They have access to Slack, Notion, to everything they need. But not to the tool to actually work.

This happens more often than companies care to admit. It is not an issue of isolated bad planning. It is the consequence of treating IT onboarding and welcoming as two separate processes, managed by different departments, different vendors, and timelines that almost never align.

When onboarding works well, it is invisible. When it fails, it is immediately noticed in productivity and in the first impression the company leaves.

In remote teams across multiple countries in LATAM, this gets one step more complicated. Each country has its own customs regulations, its own vendors, and its own delivery times.

What would be an internal task in a centralized office is a full logistics operation here.

The importance of structured remote onboarding

When a company hires someone new, the pressure to fill the vacancy and the urgency for immediate productivity often underestimate how much the first impression matters.

Companies that retain talent know that the initial experience sets the tone for the entire employment relationship. Good onboarding is not a formality. It is the first message about the culture and the value given to the new hire.

A defined process prevents new talent from wasting days trying to get access or resolving basic questions. The clearer it is, the faster they can add value.

It also organizes internal operations. IT, HR, and managers work in coordination. Improvisation and security risks—such as incorrect access permissions or data loss—are reduced.

Which tool is best for acquiring and managing remote hardware in LATAM?

When a remote company looks for a partner to delegate hardware management, the list of options is more confusing than it should be.

In the same conversation, names appear that in theory solve the same problem. In practice, they do different things.

Unduit: asset lifecycle platform with a focus on the United States. ZenAdmin: software that unifies hardware, SaaS, and access, but delegates logistics to resellers by country. ManageEngine: endpoint management software for devices the company already has - it does not purchase, deliver, or retrieve hardware.

Choosing without analyzing actual needs leads to ending up with a platform that promises global coverage but, when the new employee is in Bogotá or Montevideo, relies on a third party that no one knows.

This article compares First Plug with the three on three specific axes: what problem each one solves, who has actual operations in LATAM, and which pricing model is best depending on how the headcount grows.

Who is who

First Plug

A company specialized in hardware management for remote teams, with its own operations throughout LATAM. It manages procurement, setup, delivery, support, and offboarding for more than 100 companies in +170 countries. It is an official Apple Reseller in Argentina, works with direct purchasing, and does not depend on intermediaries in any country in the region.

Unduit

A US-based IT Asset Lifecycle Management platform. It combines asset management with lifecycle services: procurement, deployment, retrieval, repair, and resale. It has an operational focus in North America and reaches 100+ countries through a partner network. Its value proposition is for large companies with headcounts concentrated in the US and integrations with Workday and BambooHR.

ZenAdmin

An all-in-one IT platform: hardware, SaaS, access (IAM), MDM, and support in a single dashboard. It covers procurement and delivery in 150+ countries through authorized local resellers. Its differentiator is unifying in one system what in other tools is separated: hardware, licenses, and access control.

ManageEngine (Endpoint Central)

Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) software. It patches, monitors, secures, and audits devices that the company already owns. It does not buy hardware, does not deliver it, and does not retrieve it. It resolves the security layer, not the logistics.