ISCPO 2020 a Huge Success

The International Supply Chain Protection Organization (ISCPO) held their annual conference last week at the 7-Eleven Store Support Center in Irving, Texas. The conference brings together members from across a wide array of sectors to promote, educate, and advocate supply chain security and protection by building strong networks and delivering exceptional leadership training, board representation, and industry support.

Securing and protecting a company’s brand, people, and goods and services has never been more crucial to business survival. Global threats, cyber security, and omnichannel distribution are disrupting and transforming our industry, and loss prevention can no longer be siloed given that risk is now everywhere within the organization.

Day 1 of the conference kicked off with chairman Byron Smith providing opening remarks, welcoming all the participants and solution providers for attending the 2020 ISCPO event. He then discussed the variety of speakers who will share how their companies are adapting and innovating as well as the latest trends in supply chain security, industry theft, global trends, and investigation. This was followed by a discussion on “Are we prepared?” highlighting the impacts of the corona virus on the supply chain.

This was followed by a presentation with our first Keynote Speaker Lisa Mitchell, CFI, founder of Power Body Language, who opened the day with a conversation about winning “High-Consequence Conversations” and our opportunities to create change through our conversations and communications. Lisa would go on to give us a roadmap to our communication and equipping yourself to collect good data from those you interact with by:

1) Setting a goal for the conversation;
2) Developing a Conversation Persona; and
3) Creating “Winning Plays”.

Additional speakers and topics for day 1 included:

• Glenn Master, senior director of loss prevention – global supply chain/ecommerce at Pitney Bowes highlighting “Emerging eCommerce Markets on a Global Level”.

• Rod Fulenwider, vice president at D&L Protective Services discussing “Active Aggressor Issues We are Facing.”

• Tony Donofrio, CEO with TD Insights with a presentation on “The Changing Landscape of International Retail”.

• Gerardo Medrano, CEO with CARMAR Group discussing “Mexico City Security Challenges – Customs, Clearance, Security & Investigations”.

• Brandon Arnold, vice president of operations with Intelligent Logistics, LLC going through the complexities of “Transportation Brokers 101”.

Following opening remarks by Byron Smith – Chairman ISCPO, Day 2 of the conference featured another informative day with presentations that included:

• William Besse, senior advisor at Allied Universal Risk Advisory and Consulting Services who discussed “Business Recovery and Coronavirus”.

• Brian Plants, US Postal Inspection Analytics/Cyber Group – USPIS who highlighted the complexities of “Freight Forwarding Cybercrime and Scams”.

• Stephen Boyd, vice president of loss prevention with the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), who closed the speaker list by discussing “The History of AAFES – Serving Military Members, their Families and the LP Program”.

As part of the event, the ISCPO generously donated $2,000 to the Loss Prevention Benevolent Fund (LPBF). The LPBF is a fund that provides meaningful charitable grants to loss prevention professionals and their families when it matters most. Thank you to the ISCPO board of directors and all those who offered their support. Learn more about the Loss Prevention Benevolent Fund.

The conference offered a great opportunity for anyone looking to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the challenges facing our supply chains, and also provided a great place to network with other professionals looking to stay in front of the challenges our industry may face moving forward. We look forward to checking out what ISCPO 2021 will bring us!