In order to transition any Asset Protection (AP) or inventory program from good to great, your leadership team must create a strategy on two simultaneous fronts - the reduction of current crime and
the promotion of future prevention. But with physical inventory being taken only once or twice a year, how can you judge a strategy’s performance in real time?
Measurement
Unfortunately, most retail teams still rely on subjective measures: anecdotes, observations, cases, audits, etc. While some of these consist of numerical metrics, they still only offer snapshots of single incidents or moments in time, not the relevant or comprehensive datasets necessary to judge the entirety of your endeavor. And because most retail teams still rely on these subjective means of measurement, successful transitions can cause leaders and personnel to become susceptible to what I call the Loss-Awareness Paradox.
Awareness
The paradox occurs when the success of future prevention is predicated on increased awareness within the store teams. In the beginning of a successful asset protection transition, awareness by leadership, sales personnel and the AP Team is generally low, meaning that people are aware of only a small percentage of the actual incidents of loss. But as a result of necessary awareness training, that percentage will, of course, increase. And as awareness increases, the subjective perception of loss will also increase, leading many to the false conclusion that theft, fraud, and other means of loss are, themselves, increasing.
Inflection Point
This perception is true even if your successful transition is actually - in reality - reducing the total incidents of current crime. In fact, this subjective perception of increasing loss will continue until the team becomes aware of the majority of all actual loss. Only at this inflection point will their subjective measures of asset protection performance start to mirror the objective measurements of your program’s transition efforts.
Scenarios
To add some numbers for illustration, imagine that at the beginning of a successful AP transition there are 100 incidents of theft every month.
Now imagine that the team knows of only 5 incidents, meaning they have an awareness level of 5%.
Let’s say that 3 months further into the transition, the team has reached a 20% awareness level - 4 times greater than at the beginning. If the actual number of incidents stay the same though, at 100 incidents per month, the team will now believe that their theft rate has quadrupled - but only because their awareness level itself quadrupled.
Now imagine that as their awareness level increases to 20%, actual incidents of theft decrease to 80 per month - a 20% decrease in loss. The team will still believe that actual theft has more than tripled, as they are now aware of 16 incidents of theft per month, versus only 5 incidents in the beginning.
And now imagine that the team’s awareness has increased to 50%, while theft has been cut in half, to only 50 incidents per month. The team will still believe, and subjectively measure, the theft rate to be 25 incidents per month - 5 times as many than at the beginning of the transition.
Relying only on anecdotal information, this particular team may come to believe that total loss is decreasing only when actual theft incidents have decreased 50% and awareness has risen over 90%.
All this is to say that when the team relies on subjective measurements, your successful asset protection transition strategy may be judged by subjective observers as a failure for the majority of its transition.
Objectivity
And this is why objective datasets are so critical: they convey the reality of a successful transition and will help reinforce motivation, affirm the actions of personnel, calibrate strategy and tactics, and garner continued support from leadership.
A truly successful asset protection program must seek out and record as much objective data, in as many categories, as possible.
The most successful transition programs work hard to keep meticulous records of all:
inventory discrepancies
preventions
recoveries
apprehensions
EVERY incident of loss, attempted or successful
Conclusion
Only robust and comprehensive datasets will offer your leadership team and your personnel the objective measurements needed to override the team’s subjective perceptions of increasing loss, and reassure everyone that your Asset Protection transition is objectively on the right track.