Excellence in Partnerships
Tom Rittman, Vice President of Marketing, Appriss Retail
“I’ve been involved in retail store systems, both point-of-sale and exception reporting, for twenty years,” said Rittman. “I began by performing marketing communications and research, moved to meeting with clients and running user conferences, and now managing marketing, technical sales, and business development. But through it all, it’s the prospects of what comes next that drives me. I especially enjoy probing into the future-helping clients look past tomorrow to find new and better ways to use artificial intelligence and solving problems we haven’t even encountered yet.”
While the doors of innovation are opened through progressive thinking, Rittman also believes that the key remains in the hands of strong relationships. “Partnerships are best when you create solutions without limitations,” he said. “We should always try to go above and beyond. In return, our partners help make us better by providing insights and sharing ideas as we look to develop next-generation solutions. None of this would be possible without the mutual respect we have for each other.”
Rittman also offered some advice to young leaders looking to build successful careers:
- The best opportunities often come packaged as problems. Help solve a problem, and you’ve created a new opportunity.
- Do more than is expected. Try to step beyond the plan and deliver something more. This goes a long way in creating goodwill.
- Ask for more responsibility. Growth comes from pushing boundaries.
- Meet people. Accept travel responsibilities. Experience how others live their days. The only way to offer solutions is to learn what’s outside your comfort zone.
- Who is the audience, what’s the objective, and what’s the message? If you can’t answer these questions, back up and start from there.
“This advice has served me well and made me look much smarter than I am.”
Nominations Are Encouraged
The LPM team is privileged to have a front-row seat to the very best in the loss prevention industry, providing a unique opportunity to present positive, productive ways to promote loss prevention, build successful and constructive partnerships, educate and inform the LP community, and support the thought leadership that drives us forward.
The LP Magazine “Magpie” Awards are a means to celebrate industry accomplishments on an ongoing basis, recognizing the loss prevention professionals, teams, solution providers, law enforcement partners, and others that demonstrate a stellar contribution to the profession. Tom Rittman is among our January–February 2019 recipients.
We want this to be your program. Those of you working as LP practitioners witness these exceptional performances on a regular and ongoing basis, and we strongly encourage you to provide us with nominees for each of the award categories. We encourage creative nominations and want the program to cast a positive light on the many tremendous contributions of the loss prevention community. Nominations can be submitted via email to excellence [at] LPportal.com.
Find out who else has been recognized in the January–February 2019 issue – check out “LPM “Magpie” Awards: Applauding Excellence.”