With the latest round of tariffs hitting networking equipment—particularly gear manufactured in China—the pressure on procurement teams is rising fast. Whether you're an enterprise managing a global data center footprint or a small-to-midsize business just trying to keep up with infrastructure demands, the equation has changed. Replacing gear before it fails is no longer the obvious move it used to be. These price hikes are forcing IT leaders to rethink their lifecycle strategies, their vendor mix, and even their tolerance for risk.
And if you’re managing Cisco-heavy environments like we’ve been doing for two decades, you already know: the stakes are higher than ever.
Tariffs and the New Cost Reality
The 25% tariffs on Chinese-made IT hardware are hitting hard across the board, and yes—despite Cisco's admirable efforts to diversify its supply chain—plenty of their legacy and even current-generation gear was originally built in China. That means sourcing new Cisco switches, routers, and firewalls just got significantly more expensive for U.S.-based buyers.
While Cisco has done a great job of moving about 80% of its manufacturing out of China, the remaining 20% still impacts pricing. These costs are being passed directly to the channel. And in the case of refurbished or grey-market hardware? You're not immune either. Many resellers dealing in refurbished Cisco equipment are importing from overseas or flipping domestically sourced stock at slim margins—margins that just got slimmer.
For the end customer, this translates to a harsh new reality: replacing aging gear “just in case” is no longer financially prudent.
The Decline of Preemptive Replacements
For years, the industry standard has been to refresh hardware every 3 to 5 years, often earlier if budgets allowed. The logic was simple: avoid downtime, stay ahead of failure risks, and ensure performance. But with new tariffs inflating list prices and complicating procurement channels, more IT buyers are being forced to ride out aging infrastructure until it actually fails.
That’s a dangerous gamble in enterprise environments where network uptime is tied directly to revenue, productivity, and in some cases, safety. Yet it’s becoming increasingly common. I’ve had conversations in the last six months with procurement officers at Fortune 1000 firms who flat-out said, “We’ll run it into the ground and deal with the fallout.”
SMBs, in particular, are feeling this squeeze. Many don’t have dedicated teams for proactive lifecycle management. For them, the decision often comes down to one question: “Can we afford to wait?” And now, more often than not, the answer is “We have to.”
Authorized vs. Grey-Market: A Growing Divide
Another complicating factor is Cisco’s own strategic evolution. Cisco has been steadily shifting toward subscription-based models and smart licensing. Newer products—like the Catalyst 9000 series—require DNA licenses that are tightly coupled to Cisco’s cloud infrastructure. This makes them nearly impossible to repurpose or reuse in the secondary market, and it limits the flexibility that IT departments used to enjoy when buying refurbished.
This presents a real challenge for non-authorized Cisco resellers—those who specialize in refurbished or off-warranty gear. These resellers used to thrive by sourcing equipment cheaply and flipping it at a margin. But with tighter software licensing enforcement and increased customer wariness, it's getting harder to close those deals.
Add tariffs to the mix, and even these once-affordable grey-market options are now under pricing pressure. Procurement teams are noticing, and many are getting caught in a catch-22: OEM prices are inflated, and secondary market options are limited by either software lockouts or regulatory uncertainty.
Rethinking Lifecycle Strategy: From Ownership to Optimization
So, what’s the play here? For many organizations, the answer lies in optimizing what you already own. That might mean extending asset life through third-party maintenance (TPM), delaying refreshes by a year or two, or even creating internal redeployment programs to shift underutilized gear from one site to another.
There’s also a growing trend toward hybrid support models. Companies are realizing they can keep their Cisco gear longer—especially models like the Nexus 5000 or ISR 4000—by offloading support to TPM providers. These providers can offer SLAs that rival Cisco’s at a fraction of the cost, especially for hardware that’s no longer under warranty.
In parallel, forward-looking IT leaders are running more cost-benefit analyses on software-defined networking solutions or open-architecture alternatives. The goal isn’t always to replace Cisco—sometimes it’s just to find the right workload or branch location where cost-effective alternatives make sense.
Procurement Tactics That Make Sense in 2025
Given this environment, the procurement strategy for Cisco networking gear needs to get smarter—fast. Here are a few guiding principles:
- Just-in-time is replacing just-in-case. Organizations are stocking fewer spares and only replacing what fails.
- TPM is going mainstream. It's not a niche or “risky” move anymore—it's often the only way to protect capital budgets.
- Sourcing diversification matters. Companies are expanding their supplier base to include both OEM and reliable refurb partners.
- Buyers are negotiating harder. Whether you’re purchasing new or used gear, there’s more emphasis on volume discounts, flexible financing, and bundling services to lower total cost of ownership.
Final Thoughts: This Isn’t Temporary
These changes aren’t just a short-term reaction to tariffs—they’re a reflection of a permanent shift in how infrastructure is bought and sold. Tariffs were the accelerant, but the fire was already lit by cloud migration, Cisco’s software-first pivot, and shrinking IT budgets across the board.
As a Cisco veteran, I’ll be the first to say that the gear is still top-tier. But the way we procure it—how we support it, how long we keep it, and what we expect from it—has changed forever. Consider refurbished Cisco hardware or third-party maintenance to keep expenses low and make sure your procurement strategy is keeping up with the times. You can request a quote for a competitive Cisco hardware quote and see the price difference between OEM equipment and refurbished inventory in-country.
If you’re still treating your hardware lifecycle like it’s 2018, you’re already behind.
