Asset Protection: An Inside Look Part 1

It's no secret that most brick and mortar retail establishments now-a-days has either what they call an Asset Protection Department or Loss Prevention Department. Larger companies and Corporations can afford it. It's a necessity. This departments sole responsibility is to prevent their particular store from losing assets. Keep the inventory in the store. A majority of Small businesses can't afford to have an entire department concentrating on waste. Most small business won't see the return of investment for an employee to just concentrate on this. Once you understand how much Asset Protection does. You may reconsider.

People believe Asset Protection (AP) or Loss Prevention (LP) is only in the fashion of stopping shoplifters that enter the store. While that belief is absolutely correct, it is only part of it. Asset Protection includes just that...the protection of the assets of the company. This includes internal theft, paperwork errors, safety of employees, shipment irregularities, theft or damage of company property, time card fraud, Organized Retail Theft Organizations, and so on. Anything that would cost the company unnecessary loss. It's a job that does have exciting moments, but can be very tedious.

As a former Asset Protection Manager, I often wondered what drove most people to be brazen enough to steal sometimes. With today's technology, it just doesn't seem worth it. Yeah let's say you get away with it a few times and obtained thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. That merchandise is investigated and calculated. That information is kept on reports in files. The video of the occurrence is either burned to a disc or kept on some sort of hard copy. A police report is still filed and this same information is handed over to the police. Now the police have the video of the incident. If someone's done the crime before they will probably become recognized quickly. Their information is in the system so they will eventually be picked up. Ok...but let's say you weren't recognized...immediately. In High definition video a picture is taken of you (or maybe even a clip of the video). It is sent out to corresponding counties and cities. It is also uploaded to that particular police departments Facebook or other Social Network. People love to watch actual crime as it happens. After it hits the social network, your friends and family, and the world knows your face. Maybe you get your fifteen minutes of fame. But then you very quickly fade away while you serve you sentence alone. That's what happens outside of the company. Inside of a company, your picture and information is sent to all of the other stores, Every Asset Protection Manager probably keeps a BOLO Book inside of their office. This is a book of all known and unknown shoplifters and fraudsters that have taken or attempted to take from the company. This book is routinely shared with employees to keep them familiar with anyone who may try to steal or defraud the store in any way. Most of these retail establishments are in a mall or strip mall area. At times Asset Protection Managers will share their information with other stores to keep them aware of the person or persons who may be hitting up their store as well. A community is developed to benefit all retail businesses and to help keep prices low for the consumer.

Some shoplifters will break your heart to be honest. It's hard to see that some people have reached a point where they needed to steal to simply have self respect for themselves, or others to steal because they are being bullied or threatened to do it for someone else. Those cases have happened. Those cases will happen. How it is handled sets a precedent in your store or business. I will be talking about some of these cases in future posts. These will be a series of things for businesses to look out for when it comes to Asset Protection and Loss Prevention. Look for it in the Business category. The next blog will be about the mindset of Asset Protection Managers who have been in the business for a while. This will become a sort of guideline to building an Asset Protection culture in your business. We will be training you and your employees to think like an AP Agent. This is important because AP/LP Agents are trained to think a certain type of way when dealing with situations and customers. You will find that some if not most will naturally have the ability to think this way. It's thorough and without a doubt...calculated. We look forward to your questions and comments. See you on the next blog.

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