The July–August 2019 print edition has a wide-range of articles to meet the needs of retail professionals. Whether you are an in-store loss prevention associate or corporate executive, whether you are an ORC investigator or focused on supply chain, be sure to read the online version of the print magazine.
Our senior writer, Garett Seivold, was assigned to find out how analytics is playing a role in investigations. In his cover article in the July–August 2019 print edition “Analytics Is Not Just a Numbers Game in Investigations,” he spoke with a number of retailers including Home Depot, Best Buy, Designer Brands, Safeway, Bloomingdale’s, and Walmart, as well as law enforcement and technology providers, to see how investigators are using analytics. The in-depth article offers some insights derived from the technology but also reinforces that powerful data is not the only requirement for successful investigation. It still requires strong people who have both the investigative talent and the peer and law enforcement relationships to pull everything together.
August is when the Restaurant Loss Prevention & Security Association (RLPSA) holds its annual conference. We like to feature an interview with someone from the quick-service restaurant (QSR) segment to highlight what is going on in loss prevention, safety, and risk management. In our article titled “Learnings in the Quick-Service Restaurant Segment,” Executive Editor Jim Lee, LPC, looks back at interviews with restaurant executives to pull together different points of view over the years. You’ll get insights from executives at McDonalds, Dunkin’ Brands, Papa John’s, and CKE Restaurants Holdings (Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.), as well as crisis management learnings from Wendy’s infamous 2007 finger-in-the-chili fraud attempt.
Tom Meehan, CFI, is a very busy man. He not only is an executive with ControlTek during the day, but also writes bimonthly columns for the magazine as our retail technology editor and recently published his first book titled Evolution of Retail Asset Protection. In this print issue he also provided a feature article titled “Unraveling the Mystery of the Dark Web.” I heard him present on this topic about a year ago and asked him to produce an article. Even if you are not an investigator who can use access to the dark web for uncovering potential threats to your brand, it’s a very interesting discussion that enlightens (pun intended) us with an understanding of the myths and truths about a topic often misunderstood in the popular press.
Apparently, some people do other things besides babysit grandkids and gardening when they retire. Gene Smith, LPC, is one of those people. After retiring from the Loss Prevention Foundation two years ago, he remains active in the industry. In this edition of the magazine, he authored an article titled “Biometrics: Retail’s Best Kept Secret.” Biometrics is a broad topic encompassing everything from fingerprints to iris scans to facial recognition to DNA. Smith offers an overview of the subject with a focus on how one of the more common biometrics—fingerprint—is being used successfully in different segments of retail.
Apart from these four feature articles, don’t overlook our various columns from Wicklander-Zulawski, the LP Foundation, and the Loss Prevention Research Council, as well as the magazine’s Magpie awards featuring two well-known industry executives, Kathleen Smith of Safeway and Bill Titus of Sears Holdings (retired), plus much more.
As always, remember that the magazine is provided to our 15,000-plus readers for free because of our advertisers. Not only do we ask that you not skip the ads in the magazine, but also we hope you seek out these prominent solutions providers when you need products and services to include in your asset protection program.
Click here to see the full table of contents from the July–August 2019 print edition.
