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Loss Prevention: What Do the Mob, eBay and Winona Ryder Have in Common?

Loss prevention experts like Tiffany CSO David McGowan say closer integration among security disciplines will go a long way toward managing the retail industry's myriad risks.

McGowan: I agree with that wholeheartedly. I think there has been a big change in our industry with loss prevention practitioners becoming much more business-minded and more partnership-minded with management. We have become very attuned with the needs of the business. The early roadblocks were just thosethat whole "sales prevention" mentality. The risks in the jewelry industry can be very dangerous. This industry is under the threat of armed robbery on a daily basis, and Tiffany has not been without its own armed robbery incidents in the past. Those can be damaging from an inventory perspective, but there are also far more wide-reaching human issues in terms of [the safety of] our employees. We really don't want that happening in our locations to our employees. So with that in mind, security and loss prevention here is looked upon in a different light, and there are fewer roadblocks. How can other companies get through those roadblocks and put loss prevention and security awareness at the right level?Rogers: I think that security and loss prevention really have to make a concerted effort to work very closely together and with their counterparts in information security.

McGowan: I have been spending a lot more time with our IT group over the past three years. I also decided to enlist the help of a third-party IT security group to spend three days with me one-on-one just to see how much I didn't know, and it was truly an enlightening experience. [Laughs.] The amount of issues, the amount of information protocols that are out there in the IT security world is truly astounding. But the one thing I walked away from that experience with is [the need to] get away from a lot of the industry lingobe it IT or security or whateverand you get down those five basics King mentioned earlier.