PUBLISHER’S LETTER

Big Show Opportunities

In the last few months I’ve attended two conferences I rarely attend. The first was ASIS International’s annual mammoth exhibition of all things security held each September. Most recently I visited the NRF’s Big Show held in New York City each January. Following are some thoughts on these shows from a retail loss prevention perspective.

ASIS

If you’ve never been to ASIS, imagine row after row of literally thousands of exhibitors spread over multiple floors with everything from high-tech surveillance vans to drug-sniffing dogs to razor wire. Some LP solutions providers, such as Tyco and Axis, exhibit at ASIS because they offer solutions across a broad range of industries, not just LP, which makes sense. My guess is that a retail-specific vendor would be lost at ASIS.

ASIS does have a retail council that sponsors a few educational seminars, though the majority of the educational content is aimed more at corporate and industrial security. That being said, LP professionals who also have corporate and physical security responsibilities can benefit from visiting ASIS. I know the retail council would love to have more retail LP professionals attend to build their segment. It’s also possible that you could find some non-LP providers with solutions that could be adapted to retail.

Big Show

While I have attended ASIS numerous times over the past two decades, primarily when I worked for Pinkerton, I had never attended the Big Show. I went to New York with low expectations. From what I had heard, I didn’t expect to see any LP vendors exhibiting nor any LP professionals walking the hall. I was wrong.

Even though the show is really big…not the size of ASIS I’m guessing…but still big compared to LP conferences, I ran into a fair number of people I knew. Quite a few LP solutions providers were exhibiting, including i3 International, SIRAS, StopLift, as well as Axis and Tyco. And I saw a number of LP executives talking to these and other exhibitors. I asked many of them why they attended the Big Show. Visit our EyeOnLP page (EyeOnLP.com) to hear some of their reasons.

One of them, David George of Harris Teeter, gave me an explanation I hadn’t considered. He told me that he had been coming to the Big Show for several years along with other members of the Harris Teeter team, including executives from IT and operations. They either walked the exhibit hall together or compared notes in order to visit suppliers that touched the larger organization, including companies that may not exhibit at LP shows. That caused me to think.

Cross-Functional Teams

As technology integration continues moving forward, attending conferences with your internal partners across the organization has benefits. Whether you as an LP executive visit a broad retail or security show like ASIS or the Big Show, or whether you invite your IT and operations peers to RILA, FMI, or NRF loss prevention conferences, having a number of stakeholders talking and listening to solutions providers jump starts the decision-making process. Now you, as the LP practitioner, don’t have to go back to sell a solution on your own. Now you can go back as a team with many of the decision-makers already familiar with the solution and possibly already on board.

Don’t get me wrong. I still believe that the LP-specific conferences remain the best place to engage with LP suppliers, hear the most appropriate educational sessions, and certainly engage in the best networking venue for loss prevention professionals.

Still, don’t disregard alternative conferences and don’t exclude your internal peers from the LP shows. There is much to gain from both.

Jack Trlica Editor and Publisher

LossPrevention and LP Magazine are service marks owned by the publishers and their use is restricted. All editorial content is copyrighted. No article may be reproduced by any means without expressed, written permission from the publisher. Reprints or PDF versions of articles are available by contacting the publisher. Statements of fact or opinion are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the publishers. Advertising in the publication does not imply endorsement by the publishers. The editor reserves the right to accept or reject any article or advertisement.

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