Canadian Retailer - Fall 2013 - 33

LEADERSHIP
Learning the language of business the key to
career success for emerging LP professionals

providing advice on real estate, merchandising
and hiring decisions. They consult on new employee orientation. They act as teachers, coaches,
as well as detectives. They support every area of
the business because every area can suffer loss.
For the ambitious LP professional, the evolution of the LP department has opportunities for
career growth.
"LP gives you the opportunity, if you're up to it,
to learn," says Rodrigues.

PROBABILITY

Highest

WE SEE the world through our language. If an LP professional can
only talk about jobs in terms of cops and robbers, investigations
and arrests, they won't be able to express themselves in the language the rest of the company speaks-the language of business,
of profit, loss, sales and customer satisfaction.
Today's LP leaders are multilingual. They can speak the language
of investigations, but they also lead people, creLOSS PREVENTION RISK ANALYSIS
ate strategic business plans, read financials, set
budgets, get capital. Monolingual LP professionals will forever be defensive players. They limit
their career potential and the value of their deOrganized
partment to the organization.
Crime
Don Berezowski, Sears Canada's divisional
vice-president of loss prevention, says it has been
Cargo Theft
this transformation in language that has transformed many LP departments from backroom
Online Fraud
boys to upfront business leaders. As an industry,
LP professionals have been motivating themPeople
selves and each other to develop a facility for
business language-so they can talk about retail
Data
strategy, explain the value of loss prevention programming in terms of EBITDA (Earnings Before
Sourcing
Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization),
show how loss in one area of the business can lead
to losses in other segments of the business.
"We don't just talk about theft and fraud, we
IMPACT
Highest
talk about the sales that are being prevented because of loss and fraud," says Berezowski.
Place at the table
The change in language has led to a broader understanding about
Compared to where it was ten years ago, loss
what constitutes loss. "Loss" doesn't mean "stuff taken" anymore. It prevention has evolved into an entirely new spemeans lost opportunity, lost sales, loss of brand esteem. An empty cies. In many retail businesses in Canada, LP is
shelf is more than missing product. It's a lost order, a lost sale, lost finding a voice at the table of decision-making
and planning.
time, and worst, a potential loss in consumer confidence.
But LP professionals have more work to do.
Losses associated with theft cost retailers close
Broadening of loss
This broadening of "loss" has led to a more holistic view on how to $11 million per day to thieves, and shrink rates
to evaluate business performance as it relates to LP, and not sim- at some retailers account for two per cent of net
ply count arrests as a measure of effectiveness.
sales. And these numbers don't account for the
Shrink performance year-over-year remains a key indicator of losses associated with damaged reputations, lost
performance for LP professionals, as Rui Rodrigues, national dir- competitiveness and other factors that today's
ector of loss prevention at Staples, explains, but progressive LP LP professionals count as loss.
executives have taken to higher level measurements, including
At an individual level, no accreditation prowrite-offs, returns, safety incidents, and every other element that gram currently exists for LP in Canada. Outside
costs the organization money.
professional networks, conferences and informal
"LP professionals have to look at not just shrink but at every- allegiances between retailers, LP professionals
thing that would hit the loss category," says Rodrigues. "They have had to create their own paths to professionneed to focus on how they can help the organization mitigate loss- al development.
es and put the losses back to their bottom line."
Soon, perhaps, with the right individuals and
All these changes-trading investigation language for business a concerted industry effort, LP might break the
language and the measurement of total loss-has led to greater util- glass ceiling and we'll see presidents and CEOs of
ity of the LP department in some organizations. At Staples, Rod- retail chains coming out of loss prevention-somerigues says the LP department operates like a kind of consultant, thing that hasn't yet happened in Canada.

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Canadian Retailer - Fall 2013

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