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| Letter from Paul
Dear Loss Prevention Executive,
Like many of you, I have been watching the activity in Washington closely as Congress attempts to bring stability back to the financial markets. At this point it remains unclear what will come of the effort and if it will be what our industry needs.
With that in mind, one cannot help but wonder what the next six to 12 months in retail loss prevention will bring. If I had a crystal ball I think it would show a scenario unfolding something like the following:
First, a challenge from senior leadership to further reduce expenses. Dutifully, you will take the expense challenge and the guidelines, return back to your leadership team and begin to sort through the series of trade offs you may have to make before adjusting your budget accordingly to meet the expense challenges.
During this time you lay all sacred programs on the table, pre-employment screening, returns management, awareness programs, background checks, enhancements to your exception system, training material, RLPM’s. Your inner compass is telling you that cutting loss prevention in a time where significant internal and external economic pressure looms is just wrong. Meanwhile, your courageous loss prevention protégés begin to make the case that reducing sales hours and loss prevention hours will only exacerbate the risk.
What do you do? You have a responsibility to the company to support its initiatives, don’t you?
It is times like this where leaders are made. A true leader will analyze the situation and prepare proposals, each geared at following the guidance and objectives that were laid out by senior leadership. In reviewing your proposals you will be forced to prioritize and develop “what if” scenarios to accompany each proposal.
If the scenarios you create still do not make business sense, your challenge will become providing your supervisor with an honest assessment of the consequences related to the proposals.
In these moments, leaders lead. They will take responsibility for preparing plans and implementation. They serve as an honest broker of risks and returns and most importantly they are a reliable source of information to supervisors and subordinates directly impacted by the decisions made. They will deliver the bad news and will challenge false assumptions with the hope that their supervisors understand that it is for times like this that they have been chosen for the position they hold and the responsibility entrusted in them.
When it is all said and done the loss prevention leader will implement whatever plan is chosen, will do it in a positive manner and will begin preparing innovative action plans to minimize the series of risks that could follow. The loss prevention leader will always step up and lead the team. Even during tough times, their compass is working. They will keep their people engaged, dig in and produce results.
The follower on the other hand will do as requested, seldom prepare or discuss the likely scenarios that will occur. The follower will not challenge assumptions or make necessary but unpopular decisions, choosing instead a path of appeasement that rarely yields results. In the long term as all of the risks begin to surface, the performance of leaders will stand out above the others.
In the loss prevention arena we are judged by our shrink, safety and risk avoidance, but most of all by our people who are always smart enough to figure out if they are working for a leader or a follower. They want to work for people who are credible and authentic. They want to know their leaders have their back.
The times ahead are certainly challenging but also provide an opportunity to demonstrate true leadership. Being a follower is not what we trained for and is for sure pretty boring. It has been said that when you are a follower “the view never changes.”
As your RILA partner I am available to support you as we all navigate the rough waters ahead. As always, please feel free to contact me at paul.jones@rila.org.
All the best,
Paul Jones
Vice President, Asset Protection |
Save the Date for our Loss Prevention, Auditing & Safety Conference, May 3-6 in Orlando, Florida. This year’s event will feature executives from the most successful retail companies, as they discuss strategies, insights and relevant solutions that have helped them maintain their competitive edge. |
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Feature Articles
Supply Chain Corruption, Part One: Counterfeits
By King Rogers, CEO, The King Rogers Group
The integrity of the global supply chain is at constant risk of being corrupted by cargo theft, smuggling, illegal diversion and the flow of counterfeit products throughout the world. Each of these supply chain problem categories presents economic impact and logistics management challenges for manufacturers and shippers, consignees dependent upon parts, law enforcement and other government agencies. In fact, every industry that relies on the integrity of the goods they sell is depending upon these goods to arrive on time, at the locations designated and to be the genuine item that was ordered. This installment in the series on supply chain corruption addresses the cause of the greatest economic impact of loss: counterfeits. Continue reading Supply Chain Corruption
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Communicating with Senior Executives: Do You Know Their “Hot Buttons?”
By Walter E. Palmer
In last month’s column, we discussed the need to understand the “language” that your senior executives use so you can properly communicate the value that your function brings to the organization. As an example, we explored whether you should be talking about retail numbers or cost numbers when making corporate presentations.
I had a couple of readers weigh in with additional examples. One executive wrote, “In my company, we use units lost compared to units sold. My CEO always talks about shrink in terms of units lost being missed sales.” Another executive responded, “My CEO and CFO don’t talk in terms of percentage at all. They only talk in terms of cost dollars. Right or wrong, they don’t really care too much about high shrink percentage/low impact items. They figure the buyers will figure out whether those items continue to make sense from a margin perspective.” These are additional examples of the different languages and dialects that senior executives might speak. Continue reading Communicating with Senior Executives
Have PCI Standards Affected Your Ability to Investigate Credit Card Fraud?
By David Johnston, LP Innovations, Inc.
When the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards came into effect June 2005, retailers began to implement the means to protect the visibility of a credit card or debit card number throughout their company-wide systems. While in the throes of implementation, many loss prevention departments waited to determine how their company’s chosen method of protection would impact their ability to investigate this method of retail theft.
A few years have passed since these developments, and I thought it would be interesting to poll several loss prevention departments to determine the impact, if any, that PCI standards have had on investigations into credit or debit card fraud. Continue reading Have PCI Standards Affected Your Ability to Investigate Credit Card Fraud?
LPQ Certification Milestone & New Board Members Announced
By Gene Smith
LPQualified (LPQ) Certification Milestone
We are proud to announce the LPQ certification of the first 60 LPQualified loss prevention professionals. These candidates successfully achieved a passing score on the LPQualified exam, thus meeting all of the requirements set forth by the Loss Prevention Foundation Board of Directors, Knapp & Associates International and the Exam Committee for the LPQ certification. Individuals in this group have the distinct honor of being the first ever to receive this certification in the retail loss prevention industry. Continue reading LPQ Certification
Guidance for Active Shooter Procedures
By the Department of Homeland Security
An important function of the Commercial Facilities Sector Specific Agency (SSA) is to respond to the changing security needs within the retail industry. Currently, one of the foremost concerns of our partners in the Retail Subsector is the threat of an active shooter targeting a retail establishment.
An active shooter is an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area. Active shooters usually use firearms and select their victims at random. Active shooter situations are unpredictable and evolve quickly. Typically, the immediate deployment of law enforcement is required to end the shooting and mitigate harm to victims. Because active shooter situations are often over within 10 to 15 minutes, before law enforcement arrives on the scene, individuals must be prepared both mentally and physically to deal with an active shooter situation. Continue reading Guidance for Active Shooter Procedures
Coach’s Corner
By Steve Lundeen, CPCC, executive coach and consultant, Dream Engineering
Welcome to the second installment of Coach’s Corner, a new column in RILA’s Asset Protection newsletter. This month, I want to talk about one of the tools I find most effective at the onset of the coaching relationship – wheels. Continue reading Coach’s Corner
Investigator’s Corner
Confidential Informants: Part 1
By David E. Zulawski CFI, CFE and Douglas E. Wicklander CFI, CFE
Very early in my career, while working as a special agent for the railroad, I had occasion to investigate an individual named Tommy Lee Baltimore. Tommy Lee was a prolific criminal; burglarizing railcars on a nightly basis and freelancing as an armed robber in his off time. He had outstanding arrest warrants for armed robbery and burglary and was being actively sought by the railroad and the Chicago Police Department. Continue reading Investigator’s Corner
When the Sky is Falling, Does Shoplifting Really Matter?
By Caroline Kochman, Executive Director, National Association for Shoplifting Prevention
As my colleague and I sat and contemplated the perils of what may lie ahead with the news of Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and AIG, my colleague clicked on a CNN website only to see the headline: “The Sky is Falling!” – shown with a picture of a stockbroker looking up at a tall Wall Street building, presumably about to collapse. Continue reading When the Sky is Falling
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RILA Update
House Judiciary Subcommittee Holds Hearing to Address Organized Retail Crime
Last week, Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Ranking Republican Member, Louis Gohmert (R-TX) of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security held a hearing to discuss organized retail crime legislation. Under consideration were three bills introduced recently that take aim at the organized retail crime problem. H.R. 6713, the E-Fencing Enforcement Act of 2008 introduced by Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA), H.R. 6491, the Organized Retail Crime Act of 2008 introduced by Reps. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), and S. 3434, the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2008 introduced by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL). Testifying before the subcommittee were Congressman Brad Ellsworth (D-IN); Frank Muscato, organized retail crime field investigator for Walgreens Co.; Sherriff Grady Judd, Polk County Florida sheriff’s office; Steve DelBianco, executive director of NetChoice; Edward Torpoco, senior regulatory counsel for eBay, Inc.; and Joe LaRocca, vice president of loss prevention for the National Retail Federation. Continue reading House Judiciary Subcommittee Holds Hearing
RILA Will Address Organized Retail Crime in the UK
RILA Vice President of Asset Protection scheduled to speak at Loss Prevention Conference
The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) announced today that it will participate in the 4th annual EyeforRetail Retail Loss Prevention Conference to be held at the Regent’s Park Marriott Hotel, London, October 7-8th. Continue reading RILA Will Address ORC in the UK |
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For the the latest in loss prevention-related news, visit RILA’s website!
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 Inside This Issue:
-Letter from Paul Jones
-Supply Chain Corruption
-Communicating with Senior Executives
-House Judiciary Subcommittee Holds Hearing on ORC
-LP Innovations
-NASP
-DHS
RILA Event Calendar:
October 7-8, 2008
Retail Loss Prevention Europe
London, United Kingdom
October 14, 2008
Greenhouse Gas Webinar 101
2:00pm-3:30pm ET
October 21-22, 2008
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Meeting
October 27-28, 2008
Supply Chain Security Committee Meeting
October 28, 2008
Greenhouse Gas Webinar 201
2:00pm-3:30pm ET
October 30, 2008
Webinar: Turn Contact Centers to Profit Centers
2:00pm-3:00pm ET
Register
November 11, 2008
Greenhouse Gas Webinar 301
2:00pm-3:30pm ET
January 25-27, 2009
Leadership Forum
Naples, Florida
February 8-11, 2009
Logistics Conference
Dallas, TX
May 3-6, 2009
RILA Loss Prevention, Auditing and Safety Conference
For more information, please contact Erin Byrne at erin.byrne@rila.org.
 Paul Jones to Speak at Retail Loss Prevention Europe
RILA’s Vice President of Asset Protection, Paul Jones will speak at the Retail Loss Prevention Europe event this October 7-8 in London.
The 2007 National Security Survey
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Hollinger and the team from the University of Florida have just released their annual report. Shrinkage is 1.44%, which is still a staggering $34.8 billion in annual losses.
To receive a free copy of this report please email Dr. Hollinger at: rhollin@ufl.edu.
Thank you to Dr. Hollinger and his team for their dedication to this project.
The Danger Within: Mitigating the Risk of Insider Threats to Business and Government
Deloitte Insights podcast
How serious are insider threats, especially when compared to external threats? How can HR identify individuals who pose potential inside risks before they’re hired? What are the indicators of a potential threat? Learn more on Deloitte’s Insights podcast – The Danger Within: Mitigating the Risk of Insider Threats to Business and Government. |
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