“Doug once told me, there were no cash registers in his office or mine,” says Keith Aubele, president and CEO of Retail Loss Prevention Group, Bentonville, Arkansas, a consulting practice he formed after a long career with high-profile retailers such as Walmart, where Carl Douglas “Doug” McMillon is president and chief executive officer of Walmart Stores, Inc. Aubele, vice chair of the ASIS International Retail Loss Prevention Council, adds that the question to always ask is what value are you adding to the business. And he sees adjustments impacting the industry, too. “These are business leaders now although dynamically rooted in asset protection (AP) and loss prevention (LP). Today’s strength is business planning, taking a 360-degree view of the business with no preconceived ideas.”
“The silo environment [in retail organizations] is critically doomed,” Aubele contends. Numerous colleagues as well as technology solutions mirror his view that marketing, merchandising, operations, store management, real estate and especially IT are collaborating with such emerging tools as LP’s enhanced exception management, smarter video analytics, smartphone beacons that personalize with shoppers inside and walking past a store and use of big data. Such tools help “optimize the omnichannel,” adds Jammy DeSousa, with long-time retailer tech source Tyco Security Products.