In a ceremony at the Retail Asset Protection Conference in New Orleans on April 11, the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) honored Digital Safety USA as first place winner of the 2017 (R)Tech Asset Protection: Innovation Awards. The Awards showcase emerging, game-changing technologies that mitigate total retail loss, as defined in a groundbreaking research report published by RILA last year.
Digital Safety offers point-of-sale activation (PoSA) technology for “intelligent” products and single-scan UPC serialization for both “intelligent” and “non-intelligent” products. PoSA benefits include, but are not limited to, open sell of product which promotes increased sales, reduced shrink, elimination/reduction in cost from current theft deterrent solutions, reduction in returns fraud, promotes PI accuracy, and allows for true, non-assisted self-checkout options for the customer.
Second and third place winners were Profitect and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., respectively. Retailers’ Choice Award, which was voted on by conference attendees throughout the week, was awarded to Profitect, for the second consecutive year. The first, second, and third place winners were selected by a panel of top executives from a group eight finalists.
“Each year, we ask companies to bring us their game-changing technologies and each year, they deliver and exceed expectations. This year in New Orleans was no different,” said Lisa LaBruno, RILA’s senior vice president of retail operations. “Recognizing innovations across the industry and learning more about how we can implement them to improve the field of asset protection are what the Awards are all about. Thank you to all of the participants and judges, and we look forward to seeing more cutting-edge technology in the future.”
Winners of the 2017 (R)Tech Asset Protection: Innovation Awards are:
- Digital Safety USA (First place)
- Profitect (Second place)
- Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Third place)
- Profitect (Retailers Choice)
“As part of the judging panel, I was impressed with all of the nominees,” said Jack Trlica, managing editor of LP Magazine. “The various solutions represented innovative ways of solving multiple challenges faced by today’s asset protection organizations. The three companies that received the most votes are certainly deserving and should be congratulated for their forward-thinking approach to solving some very important problems in retail today.”
The Awards come on the heels of RILA’s public announcement of the (R)Tech Center for Innovation. (R)Tech is a new term coined by RILA to describe the confluence of retail and technology. An (R)Tech company embodies the core values of both those industries – global and local, nimble, and entrepreneurial – to win the loyalty of today’s empowered consumers. The Center’s mission is to is to help retailers navigate the industry transformation, and to spur the adoption of the “(R)Tech” term within the retail innovation ecosystem. To learn more visit www.rtech.org.
You can also visit the awards homepage and/or read about the 2016 Innovation Award winners in this article from the May–June 2016 issue of LP Magazine.
