Study Finds Disconnect Between IT And Loss Prevention
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
New research from the IHL Group examines industry perspectives on loss prevention technologies in retail and the very different ways business groups including IT, loss prevention (LP), and the C-suite valuate and allocate investment and staffing in those technologies based on their individual roles and priorities. The study The Great Disconnect Between LP and IT finds that there is a huge disconnect between IT and loss prevention.
The 2015 Retail Theft Survey found that dishonest employees steal more than six times the amount stolen by shoplifters on a per case average ($825.36 vs. $133.80), and yet the findings in the IHL research suggest that the gravity of those numbers don’t line up with the importance executives are placing on the problem.
The study found that retailers with greater than $1 billion in revenue spend only 8.3 percent of their IT budgets on LP priorities (not including Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards and data breach protection efforts). In addition, while 100 percent of LP professionals say cashier monitoring is a priority use of CCTV, IT and other business units deprioritize it at 56 and 57 percent, respectively.
The research also found that, after funding data breach protection and PCI certification efforts, most retail IT budgets have only 6.4 percent of the monies available to spend on other LP priorities.
Greg Buzek, founder and president of IHL Group, said, “There certainly is a disconnect in regards to focus of existing budget and resources. However, our findings indicate that real opportunities exist for other business units to actually generate revenue from these technologies with new applications, such as traffic counting and video analytics for marketing optimization, and more.” VARs that provide IT services can begin to capitalize by bringing LP initiatives into the spotlight, perhaps in combination with other efforts, particularly in the use of advanced surveillance technologies.
There will be challenges. When asked to rank the biggest barriers to a more cohesive relationship, survey respondents from IT and LP generally agreed, weighting “other business priorities” and “systems integration” as the two most important reasons. Other titles in the organization weighted “systems integration,” for example, as the largest concern, showing a disconnect in perceptions around issues and the influence of IT.
“Our team has noticed a clear disconnect in retail between IT and LP departments when it comes to budget, focus and staffing,” said Hedgie Bartol, Business Development Manager, Retail, for Axis Communications, which released the study last month. “IHL Group’s research has put in place actionable feedback and future-looking opportunities due to IP surveillance technology advancements that can be put in place organization-wide to create stronger relationships and ultimately, turn up revenue from a department otherwise known as a cost center.”