The more security systems aim at the business needs of an enterprise – beyond loss prevention – the better for the business. U.S. retail chains such as Follett Higher Education university bookstores and Gordmans department stores are reducing theft and improving operational efficiency.

They have the help of the ADT/Sensormatic Analytics NaviStor business intelligence platform and accompanying retail operation services.

Since deploying NaviStor exception reporting capabilities, Follett Higher Education, the largest college bookstore retailer in North America, increased its exception detection rate by 87 percent and saw a 46 percent decrease in the number of dishonest associate cases. With the additional support of Sensormatic Analytics retail operation services, Follett improved its key performance indicators and strengthened its exception reporting approaches with dashboard customization.

“Our largest growth has occurred over the last 20 years resulting in over 800 stores and high volume e-sales,” said Tom Provost, sr. manager loss prevention, Follett. “In terms of loss prevention resources we are spread very thin to deliver bottom line shrink numbers. Retail operation services coupled with a solution like NaviStor, with investigative capabilities for identifying fraud, provided an optimum return on investment (ROI) without having full-time dedicated resources found in larger retail operations. Now we can identify fraud and in turn create meaningful exception reports. Our investment has more than paid for itself.”

The retail operation services team consults with retailers to help develop an effective exception reporting program in order to expedite and maximize ROI. Services include:

  • Proficiency training on understanding and using data
  • Data analysis
  • Program assessment designed around the use of the profit navigation systems
  • Consulting related to physical inventory preparation, execution and shrink analysis
  • Evaluation of general loss prevention procedures and programs
  • System administration

These retail operation services can be customized, depending on a retailer’s needs. The team works with retailers to establish a strong foundational loss prevention (LP) approach while still addressing any challenges unique to their store operations.

Gordmans, a U.S. chain of 65 department stores in 16 states, has also gained the benefits of NaviStor and its associated retail operation services. To assist Gordmans, the team conducted proficiency training on the chain’s NaviStor POS exception reporting module.  

“To help us interpret data from a statistical perspective to create more useful and meaningful exception reports and scorecards, the retail operation services team performed valuable refresher and proficiency training for our asset protection corporate users as well as asset protection district managers and market managers,” said Jeff Hunter, manager of investigations for Gordmans.

“Their efforts resulted in educating our group in documenting areas of exposure and following up on identified suspect activity to produce more actionable data to achieve operational improvements. Through their on-site training on data analysis, exception reports and scorecards, we are able to better analyze our own data, make better decisions on what and how much information to look at and ultimately how to measure and score the information to make it even more meaningful across the organization.”

By combining good data with intelligent reporting, the Sensormatic Analytics platform from ADT along with its associated retail operation services provide improved analysis and metrics assessment to generate more productive reports from retail data. “Our retail customers gain a tremendous advantage in tapping the analytical skills of the team,” said Jeff Bean, vice president, retail sales and operations, ADT. “Our retail operation services experts can maximize the capabilities of our store business intelligence technologies to create effective reporting to help drive operational efficiency and profitability for retailers today – at a critical time when they need immediate results to be better positioned for future growth.”