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RETAIL TRENDS & OPPORTUNITIES advanced, and retail organizations have become more complex, the loss prevention professional's plate has grown in lockstep. "Addressing security drivers has always been a part of what loss prevention does — whether that is theft or shrinkage — but they are also now addressing business drivers of the organization," says Marty Guay, vice president of North American feld operations and sales for Stanley Security Solutions. "Tat can include audits or compliance or tracking products in the supply chain." CVO: Retailers have moved beyond standalone technology, such as electronic article surveillance (EAS) systems, cameras and access control. Nowadays the market is focused on store performance and improving upon the customer experience. Te mission of loss prevention, he says, is to leverage technology in order to drive increased visibility across the organization. Sell delves further: "Te LP professional is now saying, 'My new technology like RFID and the cameras and all the trafc intelligence and people counting are all working together. And guess what? A big part of what it does is it helps our merchandising people. It helps our marketing people. It helps our store operations people. And by the way, it still helps create a defense against shrink.' Tat visibility aspect is what we are really creating. Don't look at yourself as a loss prevention person who just tries to fght shrink. Look at yourself as a visibility ofcer who is trying to help the whole enterprise to see where the products are." VIDEO CONTENT ANALYTICS, MOBILE POS AMONG DISRUPTIVE TRENDS Among emerging technology trends showcased at the NRF conference, business analytics programs are focusing on point-of-sale (POS) and merchandise returns in conjunction with enhanced video surveillance. Tese intelligent retail analytics programs not only beneft loss prevention eforts, but they can help manage the overall business strategies, efciencies and control fraud. "At the beginning of the day, having a clear The National Retail Federation (NRF) Loss Prevention Conference & Expo was held camera image isn't the sexy part of the applicaJune 12-14 in San Diego. Above, Mike Hyter, president of Global Novations, a leadertion. It's really about working with a lot of vendor ship and talent consulting frm, addresses diversity in the workplace. partners to deliver a unifed, coordinated sysAdditional chairs at the executive table have been added as tem that delivers cross-functionality to retailers across the a result of all the organizational sea change. Loss prevention board," says Jackie Andersen, business development manis sitting next to procurement, which has also become ever ager, retail, for Axis Communications. more sophisticated in recent years. IT is entrenched now that To highlight a few examples of what is possible with video formerly self-contained and locally stored security systems content analytics, retailers can determine customer dwell reside on the retailer's infrastructure. Te result is networked times and movement patterns, apply it to POS integrations to video can be accessed by other departments. Layer on ana- record and follow what is happening with the money at cash lytics and the video investment can be utilized by store plan- registers, and with access control systems to manage directning to track queues, foot trafc, stafng needs and more. store deliveries. And hello to the risk management department, which is uti"Tere are a lot of things from an operational and marketlizing networked video to investigate slip-and-fall incidents, ing and loss prevention cross-functionality that is driving a worker's comp issues, etc. lot of value to the camera, and more importantly to the "We are seeing more people at the table because the solu- retailer's bottom line," Andersen says. tions are becoming much broader and more powerful inside Despite the retail market's advances in applying new techthe customer's organization," Guay says. nologies, signifcant departmental barriers remain in many Further illustrating the degree of transformation in the organizations. Te use of video serves as an example of this market, Steve Sell, director of marketing for retail at Tyco reality. Andersen describes a culture where the loss prevenIntegrated Security (TycoIS), suggests a new title is in order tion professionals, some of whom still believe they own the for the loss prevention ofcer or director. In a nutshell, here video, are adjusting to a new paradigm under which other is his case for coining the moniker chief visibility ofcer or departments are staking claim to video data as well. 62 / SECURITYSALES.COM / JULY 2013