5 minute read
EVIDENCE-BASED LP
Make an Impact Ten Years Going
This is the tenth year that loss prevention and asset protection leaders have met to design and discuss research-driven loss prevention. The first Impact conference was the brainchild of ten LP vice presidents who wanted to make better-informed decisions. They wanted to better understand how internal and external crimes occur, and how offenders think. They wanted to get much better at what their retail organizations expected them to do.
At the time this was somewhat new thinking in this field. But they recognized how critical life safety, corporate reputation, and crippling theft losses are. They also understood that benchmarking and networking needed to be more evidence-based. They needed to not just work together, but to work with researchers to systematically improve LP knowledge, processes, and tools.
Tenth Impact Conference
Here we are anticipating the 10th Annual LPRC Impact Conference set for October 13–15 on the University of Florida (UF) campus in Gainesville. Time goes by fast. And those ten original retailers have grown to almost forty. Total membership, including solutions providers and manufacturers, has grown to almost 100 corporations.
The 2014 conference planning is led by Toys‘R’Us Vice President of AP Chris Gillen alongside other LP executives. The team has retailers presenting short, real-world case summaries of their evidence-based product and protective projects. Retailer, solution partner, and active offender panels will be used to explore critical crime and loss topics. University of Florida and other experts will be discussing cyber and non-cybercrime threats and research opportunities. The LPRC working groups will break out separately to cover recent research findings while planning for upcoming projects. A ton of science-informed learning is here for all.
There are always ample networking opportunities, including at the University’s golf course on Sunday afternoon, the Monday evening LPRC Innovation Lab reception, and the historic Thomas Center dinner and music event Tuesday evening; not to mention lunches and breaks.
I’d like to personally invite you to consider participating in the 2014 Impact conference. Please email operations@lpresearch.org for more conference information.
Parking Lot Crime Research Update 1
I’ve mentioned several times how important shopper safety and comfort is to good brick-and-mortar retailing. Shoppers should feel safe in your stores and parking lots even after dark. If they don’t, your sales go down or even disappear. Fear of crime is real and can be devastating to your business.
To that end, the LPRC and UF have implemented a focused parking lot research and development protocol. Here is part of our project description: ■ Legitimate place users, including employees, customers, and others. ■ Crime types, including crimes against persons (assault, rape, robbery, other) and crimes against property (auto theft, burglary, vandalism, other). ■ External offender entry modes, including both pedestrian and vehicular access and attack. ■ Primary objectives are to shape place-user behaviors, including to convince would-be offenders not to enter the property and convince would-be offenders who have entered the property not to offend there. ■ Secondary objectives are to improve event handling both during and after an event, which can improve deterrence. This includes enhancing early event detection and quick response to mitigate crime intensity and damage, as well as enhancing crime event documentation for better conviction rates and protective effort improvement.
In the next column I will discuss this project in greater detail. Also look for project findings and implications at upcoming conferences.
by Read Hayes, Ph.D., CPP
Dr. Hayes is director of the Loss Prevention Research Council and coordinator of the Loss Prevention Research Team at the University of Florida. He can be reached at 321-303-6193 or via email at rhayes@lpresearch.org. © 2014 Loss Prevention Research Council
Working Groups Summit
People drive everything. At the LPRC our working groups’ productivity is directly correlated to the energy, planning, and actions of our retailer leaders and participants. To that end, over thirty executives recently conducted a planning summit in mid-August on the UF campus to enhance the process and output of all working groups. Several new initiatives resulted, and more people from more retailers are now working together in these important groups.
Social media continues to pull together and inform LP professionals. Our LinkedIn reach has increased to over 2,000 members. I invite you to join the LPRC LinkedIn group to participate in the discussion, as well as reach out to me personally so we can gather your thoughts and share our results. Our UF and LPRC teams are working to support the entire LP industry. Please let me know your thoughts and suggestions at rhayes@lpresearch.org.
10TH ANNUAL LPRC IMPACT CONFERENCE
The next gathering of the LPRC is scheduled for October 13 – 15, 2014, on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville. The impact conference is focused on communicating the results of the past year’s research activities as well as looking at those retail issues that warrant adding to the list of research in the coming year.
The conference features presentations by both scientists and retailers who participated in the research. Top left, John Voytilla addressed attendees at the 2012 conference. Voytilla, chief security officer at Office Depot/OfficeMax, is the current chair of the LPRC board of advisors.
A large portion of the conference involves group participation on specific topics of interest. This interactive aspect of the conference both stimulates participation by all attendees as well as facilitates the direction for new research by the LPRC. Bottom left, John Doggett, LPC, director of LP merchandising/ vendor shrink solutions and analytics of Lowe’s, presents the results of a smaller group discussion on RFID to the entire conference attendees.
For more information about attending the upcoming conference or getting more involved with the LPRC, visit LPresearch.org.
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