ASSOCIATIONS IN ACTION

What’s in Store for NRF’s LP Community

After spending many years as a retailer on the National Retail Federation’s loss prevention advisory council, it is a rewarding experience to now be a part of the NRF team as vice president of loss prevention.

One can only imagine the many priorities for a large retail trade association, but maximizing and delivering member value is a common thread in everything we do. A streamlined effort brought on by our president and CEO Matthew Shay, as well as our entire senior executive team, has ensured NRF’s communities are now carefully linked with each other’s initiatives, bringing about pooled resources and expertise to better serve our member companies.

Mobile Technologies

At NRF we continuously strive to stay on top of trends, provide thought leadership in multiple instances, and advocate for our members and retailers in general. As an industry that helps drive the innovation and cutting-edge technology that consumers love so much, we are forced to stay ahead of the curve as well as recognize issues and potential pitfalls in virtually every element, including loss prevention. And, when it comes to mobile technologies, LP teams have their work cut out for them.

In addition to the many great opportunities retailers with mobile platforms are now afforded because of savvy shoppers, mobile

technologies can also present operational difficulties at various levels, including unforeseen vulnerabilities and risks within retailers’ point-of-sale systems, digital receipt operations, and through issues with touchless payment processes and consumers’ personal property. Additionally, because of increased demand for certain technologies, many third-party companies sometimes rush to deploy these capabilities, leaving LP professionals to seek out risk mitigation solutions after deployment once an issue presents itself.

It is because of this rapid growth in mobile platforms that NRF is utilizing our own experts from within the organization who deal with mobile in their communities to regularly meet and discuss mobile operations from A to Z. In order for us to gauge current mobile threats and emerging technology trends, in April we launched a survey to more than 400 LP industry professionals, hoping to gain further insight into what loss prevention executives and professionals across the country are doing to manage these potential risks. Other divisions within NRF will do the same within their communities, all of us utilizing member surveys, our councils and committees, and educational content and networking opportunities at our events.

After spending many years as a retailer on the National Retail Federation’s loss prevention advisory council, it is a rewarding experience to now be a part of the NRF team.

by Rich Mellor Mellor joined the National Retail Federation in November 2011 as vice president of loss prevention, where he is responsible for directing initiatives ranging from the annual LP conference and LP advisory council to NRF’s investigator’s network. Mellor is an experienced LP executive with such companies as Helzberg Diamonds, The Bon-Ton Stores, Macy’s, and Woodward & Lothrop. He had been an active member of the NRF LP advisory council for more than twenty years, which includes his tenure as chairman from 2002 to 2005. Mellor can be reached at 202-661-3057 or mellorr@nrf.com.

LP Conference

As we look ahead to NRF’s Loss Prevention Conference & EXPO in New Orleans June 20 – 22, I am convinced this event will be one of the most talked about conferences of the year. On Wednesday at the show, we will welcome Stephen Sadove, chairman and CEO of Saks, as our keynote speaker. During his session he will discuss how loss prevention and asset protection strategies play an integral role in transforming an organization and help the company meet its overall financial performance goal. As is often the case around the industry, Sadove has a very keen interest in his company’s LP operations, and I’m sure it will shine through when he addresses the attendees.

If you’ve never been, our annual LP conference is one of the premier events for LP professionals, bringing together the industry’s leading experts, senior retail loss prevention executives, and even law enforcement personnel from the local, state, and federal levels. For full details about the conference, visit nrf.com/lp12.

Other Initiatives

We’re also looking forward to the upcoming release of our eighth annual organized retail crime (ORC) survey. Still a brutal problem that retailers grapple with every day, many retailers have created specific divisions within the organization to address the issue of organized retail crime. The ORC survey not only serves as a benchmark for industry professionals, but also as an important tool used to communicate the severity of this issue to our local and federal legislators, as well as to the media.

Specific to our Retail Means Jobs campaign and as we work to boost the concept of “retail as a career,” our LP education committee in recent months has been hitting the ground hard pushing for specific loss prevention degree programs at select colleges and universities around the country.

There are a lot of great things happening at NRF. We know we will have exciting news to report throughout the year as we develop these and other important initiatives further.