As a seasoned loss prevention professional, the shifting world around us never ceases to amaze me, and my peers never cease to challenge and teach me. Moving forward, I continue to settle my thoughts on the importance of harnessing the ideas of innovation and reinvention. In today’s tremendously challenging and ever-changing business environment, it is important to remain focused and tap into our creativity when it comes to maximizing effectiveness and utilizing every resource. This is a time for leadership, vigor, determination and teamwork.
RILA Loss Prevention, Auditing & Safety Conference 2009
As the RILA Loss Prevention, Auditing & Safety Conference approaches, my team and I have evaluated the landscape and we see the importance in supporting the industry in both the here-and-now and in the long term. It has been our goal from the outset to foster an inclusive environment for this year’s LPAS conference, one in which all loss prevention executives can come together as a community to discuss best practices and seek productive and valuable industry solutions and ideas relevant to the present environment as well as the future.
In the spirit of unity and cooperation, we have worked to create a feasible pricing model that not a single conference out there can beat. One that stays both within a reasonable budget and still includes all of the incredible offerings we have found to be valuable to loss prevention executives - both retailers and solution providers!
Understanding that many of us are in transition we have worked to ensure our LP colleagues seeking new and different opportunities and wishing to stay engaged are able to attend this conference. This year for the first time we are offering the LP executives in transition rate. We understand how important it is to continue professional development and stay connected with the LP community, and we want to help our colleagues continue to build relationships and broaden their knowledge.
Additionally we have been sure to incorporate offerings to our valued solution provider partners, by way of providing to them a better ratio of retailers to service suppliers and ensuring that there is more time for networking and time to participate in sessions, breaks and other functions along with retailers.We have also been working to draw in the next generation of talent by opening this conference up to local students and academia at a special rate.
We want to ensure that all who wish to learn alongside of us can!
We are particularly excited this year about a new training we are offering to your team that has been brought to you for free by our friends at LossPrevention Magazine. The Wicklander-Zulawski Telephone Interviewing Seminar, being held the last day of the conference, will provide invaluable on-site training at the conference in telephone interview and interrogation! We in the loss prevention community understand the growing success of interview and interrogation via the telephone, and we have heard feedback from some of our member companies that their cost-saving effectiveness has not only risen when utilizing telephone interviewing but also their admission rates.
We are also pleased to have added an additional cutting-edge general session featuring co-speakers Dr. Richard Hollinger, professor of criminology at the University of Florida, and Jim Lee, chief executive officer and executive editor of LossPrevention Magazine. Through the session entitled “Managing in a Down Economy,” they will present an industry-wide benchmarking study of current crime trends. The results of this study are that of the RILA Current Crime Trends Survey, which will compare data gathered in December 2008 to current data from April 2009. By re-mapping the crime trends that the retail loss prevention industry is seeing, we will have a better sense of what is happening in our space and the best way to combat it. In a town hall setting, attendees will be able to interact with one another, offer thoughts, ask questions, and learn from those around you! This is the opportunity to learn about what is happening in the current economic climate and how it is affecting retail today!
Other interactive sessions being offered this year include the Audit Open Forum and Safety Open Forum which will allow attendees to discuss best practices and current trends in a round-table setting. Sessions like Jill Evans’s “Self Scanning: Profit or Loss?” that will give you the opportunity to hear recent survey results regarding self-checkout systems and current shrink-combating methods. Mark Hilinski and Libby Rabun’s “Unlocking the Value in Returns,” will place you in a room with audience response devices that will capture audience feedback in real time and the speakers will directly respond to these trends! There is much to learn and discuss through all of these interactive sessions, and as you continue to lead and support your companies, we plan to support your efforts through great educational content.
Finally, with all the events happening in the world around us, it is a good time to sit in on Dr. Larry Barton’s general session on threat assessment. “Retail Threat Assessment: How Teams Evaluate Threats by Employees and Customers” will help you understand how to approach and prepare for threats in your workplace. As loss prevention professionals, we understand the importance of being proactive and prepared for situations. And we will of course, be featuring our esteemed speakers, Marvin Ellison, executive vce president of The Home Depot and Chief William Bratton of the Los Angeles Police Department. For more information on these sessions and more than 40 other education-packed sessions, visit www.rila.org/lp/.
Organized Retail Crime
The push to fight organized retail crime (ORC) is continuing on Capitol Hill. On February 25, 2009, RILA and the Coalition Against Organized Retail Crime (CAORC) were happy to participate in the re-introduction of three federal bills to combat this growing problem. We have high hopes here in Washington, DC that these bills will be passed this year and look forward to continuing the charge toward achieving this goal. Please help inform your community and those outside the LP space about ORC, and visit www.orcawareness.com to sign up and write your local congressmen and fight ORC.
RILA Horizons Committee Meeting
Our continued battle against ORC does not just end on Capitol Hill. The RILA Horizons committee met in February to discuss the future of reducing shrink and improving loss prevention methods. The group met at RILA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, to learn from such guest speakers as those from SRI International and Digital Harbor. These leading thought developers provided our loss prevention executives with the tools that they need to approach the technology that is on the horizon for our industry. From systems and programs that track unusual behavior to improved technology sensing systems, the RILA Horizons committee is eager and energized to seek out and adopt the frontline of technology to deter and prevent losses in the stores.
See You in Orlando!
In closing, as the 2009 Loss Prevention Auditing Safety Conference in sunny Orlando, Florida, inches closer, we continue to grow excited with the great educational content that the conference will provide our attendees, knowing the value they will find in every experience that they have there!
We look forward to continuing all of our efforts to meet the challenges and opportunities ahead, understanding that the perspective we gain and the innovation that is possible when we are asked to rise to the occasion is often when we do our best work. Through education, continued collaboration and invention, we look forward with enthusiasm at all we can accomplish.