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 about the stages a computer goes through from the moment it is purchased until it is decommissioned.

The hardware lifecycle of a remote company does not start when a computer arrives at the employee'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 of 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 when the team grows.

This series covers all the stages of the hardware lifecycle in distributed teams. We start with acquisition: the one that causes the most inconveniences and, in turn, the one 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 vendor, and the time.

How long remote employee hardware onboarding takes depends on just one thing: whether there is a defined process or not.

Without a process, every new hire becomes an isolated project - looking 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 each manager figures it out on their own. They buy at local retail, get a quote from whoever is handy, or wait until someone from IT has time.

The result of this improvisation is always the same: uncontrolled purchases, equipment taking longer than expected, no clear record of what was bought, 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 due to 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 admit. It is not a problem of occasional poor planning. It is the consequence of treating IT onboarding and welcoming as two separate processes, with different departments, different suppliers, and timelines that almost never align.

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

For remote teams in several LATAM countries, this becomes even more complicated. Each country has its own customs logic, its own suppliers, and its own delivery times.

What is an internal procedure in a centralized office becomes a 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 the importance of the first impression.

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

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

It also organizes the internal operation. IT, HR, and managers work in coordination. Improvisation and security risks—such as incorrect access rights 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 pop up that in theory solve the same problem. In practice, they do different things.

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

Choosing without analyzing real 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 nobody knows.

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

Who is who

First Plug

A company specializing in hardware management for remote teams, with its own operations across LATAM. It manages acquisition, setup, delivery, support, and offboarding for over 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

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 via a partner network. Its value proposition is for large companies with headcounts concentrated in the US and integrations with Workday and BambooHR.

ZenAdmin

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 is separated in other tools: 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, deliver it, or retrieve it. It solves the security layer, not the logistics.

You hire talent in Mexico and you don't know how to get the equipment to them. It is a more common problem than it seems.

Companies based in the United States, Europe, or other LATAM countries run into the same obstacle when they try to solve it from the outside: importing.

The real problem: importing hardware to Mexico

Importing hardware to Mexico involves dealing with a customs logic that is rarely clear to an IT or HR team operating from the outside.

Customs law requires a customs broker - or customs representative - to determine the tariff classification for each shipment. Correctly classifying merchandise requires a level of specialization that an IT or HR team typically does not have.

Laptops fall under a specific classification within the chapter for data processing machines. They are generally exempt from tariffs thanks to the trade agreements of which Mexico is a part.

But exempt from tariffs does not mean exempt from costs. Active VAT and a customs processing fee are still applied to the customs value. In addition, Mexican official standards (NOM) for computer equipment must be verified, both for labeling and safety.

The tariff framework is not static. Trade agreements are revised, tariffs are adjusted, and classification rules are updated.

A company that budgets an onboarding months in advance runs the risk of costs changing before the actual shipment.