Relevance
By Bill Nichols
Director, Loss Prevention
Christmas Tree Shops,
Bed Bath & Beyond
Reading through
the Thought Challenge archives I see a lot of topics that
talk about change, embracing change, the need to know your
business beyond LP, integrity, risk taking, the future of LP
in Retail, the need for self-improvement, the need for more
knowledge, the need for more technology and the need to
network to be able to sell one’s skills in the market place.
All of these are excellent topics, and are important in the
discussion of the Loss Prevention industry today. However,
the applicable term for all of these topics is “relevance”.
How relevant are you to your organization?
We are all proud of the Loss Prevention Industry and the
strides it has taken over the last few decades to increase
its credibility and value in the business world. However, we
all know that when the bottom drops out of the bottom line,
Loss Prevention gets the first glance when the cost control
wonks start counting the beans. Over the last five years we
have seen many organizations freeze programs, downsize
programs and eliminate programs in an effort to protect the
bottom line. Quite often that effort is misguided and only
exacerbates the financial impact by eliminating or weakening
controls. So why would intelligent business people make such
decisions? It’s because they did not see the relevance of
the programs/resources to their current situation.
Establishing relevance in the eyes of your Executive Team
can mean the difference between expanding your programs and
eliminating them.
How do you establish relevance? First, by providing the
organization and decision makers with regular empirical and
statistical updates on the progress and results of your
programs. This establishes and reinforces the business value
of you and/or your program. Second, clearly communicate the
vision and strategy of the future of your program, along
with expected results. This establishes your future business
value to the organization, while setting goals for you and
your programs. Third, you must know your “internal
competition”. Understand what their vision and strategy is
in order to ensure your programs are designed for maximum
benefit to the organization so that you get your share of
the available resources. Remember, Loss Prevention,
Operations, IT, Legal and Human Resources are all looking to
establish their relevance and get their piece of the pie.
The departments least effective in establishing the
relevance of their programs will get the least amount of
resource, and may eventually be left behind.
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