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Hello, Welcome to a special 
three-part episode where we talk

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about the biggest problem in 
retail right now, which is 

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theft. 
With US retailers like Target 

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and Walmart Home Depot grappling
the rising inventory shrinkage 

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leading to significant profit 
losses, this issue has cost the 

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industry over $100 billion, 
double that of 2015. 

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Increased theft incidents, 
either violent ones, are 

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prompting measures like 
surveillance plexiglass. 

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However, balancing security with
a seamless shopping experience 

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is an ongoing debate. 
In the United Kingdom, the Coop 

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reported its highest ever levels
of retail crime, with over 

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175,000 incidents in the first 
half of 2023. 

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Over the next three episodes 
we'll take a look of the problem

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of shrink or theft, talk to 
experts in the field and look at

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real life solutions on what 
retailers can do to protect 

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themselves from the etab offices
in the UK. 

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I'm joined by Leandro Blank. 
Who better to talk to about such

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an important problem in retail 
than the experts? 

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Leandro, welcome to the podcast.
What I'd love to start by doing 

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is getting your view on what is 
lost. 

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First of all, thank you Annex 
for having us in the in the 

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podcast. 
I would say that Nos. 

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It's a very broad concept. 
That nowadays we are seeing lot 

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of noise and lot of news around 
fast specifically, but it's 

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actually a bigger challenge for 
retailers which includes from 

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the loss that happens in during 
the process supply chain 

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inventory, stock error in the 
process of accounting and 

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pricing. 
It also includes product waste 

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and spoilage. 
So all the product that it goes 

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out of stock because the expire 
date has reached. 

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And then the third, Peter, is 
the the theft, which is now the 

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most hot topic in the press and 
the news and everywhere but we 

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see in theft, we can also split 
it into two different 

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categories, organized crime and 
what we call opportunist theft. 

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It's a client that goes to the 
store, sees an opportunity, 

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doesn't scan, doesn't pay for 
something. 

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You see that he can he or she 
can get away with that. 

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And then they repeat that I 
becomes a behavior. 

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Yeah. 
So these two aspects are 

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different. 
Within this theft pillar of 

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loss, is there one that causes 
more of a headache for 

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retailers? 
Is there one that's prioritized 

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when you're talking to 
retailers? 

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I guess all of them are in the 
agenda. 

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But what we are seeing is that 
specific specifically theft, 

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it's in the rise, right because 
of the dynamics that we are 

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seeing now in the in the current
economic situation. 

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So rising cost of living, the 
diminishing margins from the 

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retailers are making this theft 
the one that it's now becoming 

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the really hot topic because 
it's in the rise. 

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The other tool, for example the 
process, the ones related to 

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processes or the one related to 
product waste are more or less 

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being managed by the retailers. 
But the one that it's purely 

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related to theft, that's the one
that it needs to be put under 

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control at the moment. 
So can it be put under control 

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in reality? 
Can you really help retailers or

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is it just marketing? 
It can be put under control. 

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There are some initiatives going
on as everything in life. 

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With everything that is an 
upside and then downside, sure. 

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So every initiative, every 
solution we have a trade off. 

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So I think that the challenge 
remains how to mitigate the 

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risk, yeah. 
Theft without stopping trading, 

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yeah, because that's in stores 
are there to enable trade. 

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So if you put lots of barriers 
and lots of products behind the 

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cabinet counters when they 
closed in cabinets, then yeah, 

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you're going to reduce loss 
where you're impacting sales at 

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the same time. 
So that's I think for me the 

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main challenge how to put theft 
under control and mitigate the 

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risk, Yeah, but at the same time
I'm what I was going to say 

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improve the customer experience,
but at least don't make the 

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customers don't have any work on
it, right. 

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I don't make it worse. 
It's. 

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Not make it worse. 
Yeah, because it's interesting 

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because again, the NRF report 
that focuses in and and in the 

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UK, the Federation of Small 
Businesses has also they 

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launched a report in July about 
what are for small shopkeepers 

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or small medium enterprises, how
much of a problem it is for 

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them. 
And obviously they're asking for

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change in the UK law as they are
in the US to make any type of 

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shop crime more than petty 
theft, which is the way they 

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look at it. 
But this whole thing about 

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friction and having the right 
amount of friction to prevent 

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theft or the right amount of 
friction to allow a great 

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customer service. 
What I found interesting when I 

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was reading the report and some 
of the solutions had to mitigate

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was this whole concept of, you 
know, capturing live video and 

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then using AI or this new world 
of AI and data to help store 

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staff get themselves out of 
positions of danger. 

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Exactly, because that's the 
other big problem is no retailer

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wants their associates to be in 
danger. 

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I just wondered if you have any 
thoughts on that in terms of 

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best ways to help retailers. 
So we understand the problem, 

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but what is the solution? 
That there is no one single 

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solution for every retailer and 
there is no one single batch 

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point that will solve all the 
problems. 

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Yeah, So what we see that works.
Is that, first of all, each 

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retailer has a different 
dynamic, different operating 

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model and so we need to approach
every retailer as a new 

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development. 
So we will end up with a bespoke

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solutions for every retailer 
based on their need, on their 

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specific dynamics and their 
specific customer experience 

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that they want to deliver to the
client. 

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So just working from your 
experience, when you're talking 

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to these people, what is that 
one thing that they come to you 

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with? 
Like, I know everyone's 

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different, but yeah, are they? 
Is it theft as a problem in 

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general that's driving their 
conversation with you right now?

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I think that now the main 
challenge that we're seeing is 

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that, but it's not really a 
measure of loss, right? 

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Where it's happening in which 
products when, So there is lack 

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of information. 
Got you. 

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So I think that. 1st, we need to
start there. 

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We need to understand where is 
loss happening and once we will 

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understand that, then we can 
propose a solution. 

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It's really hard to measure the 
absence of something, so losses 

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something that it's not there. 
So our approach is probably 

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measuring the when we can 
convert a potential loss into a 

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safe opportunity. 
Yeah. 

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So that's something that it can 
be measured and can be then also

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put in the in a in a. 
Highlight within the 

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organization because everyone 
understands the language of 

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sale. 
Yeah, in a retail environment 

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because until now I think loss 
was more on the on the back end 

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was a for the loss prevention 
officer somewhere in the back 

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and very isolated from the rest 
of the of the organization. 

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Yeah. 
But when you translate that into

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a sales discussion, how we can 
by preventing laws and loss, 

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actually it transformed that 
into a sales opportunity. 

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Then that is that something 
real? 

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I mean does that like? 
Just to give one example, yeah 

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non scan and attempt and it says
checkout. 

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Yeah, if we can convert a non 
scan attempt into an that's a 

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sales, right, but you're. 
Transforming, and in that case, 

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is that that's an innocent 
mistake that someone may have 

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made, but the retailer will lose
anyway. 

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Or or innocent. 
It only broke. 

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Yeah. 
Interesting. 

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Interesting. 
Why are they focusing on it now 

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when it's been around for so 
long? 

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Since there is written, there is
loss. 

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So it's been always a problem 
until now is budgeted and it was

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in the P&L, somewhere in the 
P&L. 

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But now there are two dynamics 
as I I I said it beginning that 

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I'm putting this on the hotspot 
on one side notice increasing, 

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yeah, on the other side profits 
are going down, margins are 

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going down. 
Yeah, so now. 

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Reducing loss has become a 
pocket loss margin, the pocket 

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of growth for the retailers. 
So nowadays actually investment 

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in loss prevention initiatives 
is his number one investment. 

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The other thing I hear and and 
I'm sure retailers are probably,

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you know, when you go to any 
trade fair, you see loss 

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prevention through computers, 
loss prevention through AI, loss

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prevention through data, loss 
prevention through dates, Los 

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prevention through pause. 
Where do you start? 

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How do you how do you tackle 
this problem? 

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Every single problem might be 
tackled with a touch point with 

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a single touch point. 
But the the real value to really

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address loss in a holistic way 
and with a multi dimensional 

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approach because loss is a multi
dimensional problem is by 

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connecting all these dots 
together. 

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So and not only the touch points
that are related to loss 

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specifically like a vision 
technology could be, foot fault 

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could be, transactional data 
could be. 

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Time of day, weather. 
So all the data points that we 

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have, we have around and written
store. 

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If we connect all those 
together, we can extract the 

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patterns on the data that could 
give us insight and we copilot 

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to the store manager to know 
when something could happen. 

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I think that's where the value 
lies. 

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That sounds like science 
fiction. 

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I mean like, I mean I love the 
idea of Copilot and and you know

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which business doesn't want to 
enable their store manager, 

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their store associates to help 
them. 

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I mean NRF for example. 
Again the the report said one of

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the pieces of advice that they 
give to the executives or the 

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retailers, do not ask your 
colleagues to engage, record the

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incident, gather the data and in
the US they're trying to share 

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the data. 
But I mean how does that? 

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Is there a way of bringing it 
all together? 

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There is. 
We're working on initiatives. 

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But rather than me talking about
it, yeah, don't you come to our 

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office in the showroom in in 
Sweden and you can see it for 

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yourselves. 
I sound fantastic.