Submitted by Harold McIntyre
Loss Prevention Manager

July 9, 2012

When I began my LP career, as a store detective, I thought that the end-all be-all was shoplifters. I thought the more shoplifters you catch, the greater impact you'll have. Overtime I learned that the apprehension of a shoplifter, in and of itself, will have minimal impact on your shrink. If I catch 100 shoplifters a year, but 500 exit with merchandise, what impact did I have? When you layer on a program that includes education/training as well as deterrents, i.e. sensors, PVMs, CCTV, etc., then you start to see results. Your impact becomes 100 shoplifters caught, 200 shoplifters deterred through education/training of your people and 100 shoplifters deterred by sensors, PVMs, CCTV, etc., leaving you with an impact of 80% or more on your external program. From this I shifted from stat driven to results driven, and as a results driven LP professional, you can't have tunnel vision, you have to be able to see the big picture and learn the business of loss prevention. Don't get me wrong, you still have to catch cases, but you can't live on just steak, you have to have your veggies too.