How insights guide retail safety strategies

Imagine knowing not just what happens in your retail environment, but why it happens.

You could deploy staff more efficiently, optimize your store layout to protect high-risk items, or ramp up your AP/LP efforts by location – all based on data. From understanding the percentage of incidents that escalate into serious behaviors to knowing the products most frequently targeted, structured data is the key to unlocking strategic safety and security decisions.

And the link between data and decision-making comes down to insights.

How can retailers unlock these insights? What must be true to transform data into human-led loss prevention strategies?

Let’s answer those questions and more.

How insights empower retail AP/LP teams 

Data provides a snapshot of what’s happening; it’s up to humans to unlock its true value when it comes to increasing safety. Rich insights empower safety and security professionals to excel in their roles through data-informed decision making.

Data-informed decisions are simply defined by the inclusion of real, quantifiable data. At a high level, data-informed decisions can responsibly enable precision, speed, and safety.

Retail crime insights for precision

By analyzing patterns, retailers can tailor their security measures to address specific vulnerabilities and opportunities. Insights enable you to pinpoint where and how your efforts will have the most impact.

For example, insights-based strategies could include deploying prevention tools to high-risk areas identified through data analysis, or increasing security protocols based on the times and locations that experience the most crime events.

Retail crime insights for speed

Retailers can respond to emerging threats or adapt to ever-changing patterns of Organized Retail Crime at dramatically faster speeds when data is on their side. Real-time insights allow AP/LP teams to quickly identify shifts in criminal patterns.

Retail crime insights for safety

Retailers can use structured data and trends to proactively address situations that could compromise the safety of customers and staff. For instance, if data shows that serious behavior is on the rise in stores, retailers can train staff in non-confrontational de-escalation strategies, and invest in tech such as intelligence-led LPR to responsibly identify known offenders as they enter the parking lot.

How AP/LP teams use retail data in their work

AP/LP teams are most successful when they harness and analyze data to enhance security measures, work with law enforcement, and optimize their operations. Ultimately, integrating data into their workflows makes it possible for AP/LP professionals to create safer shopping experiences.

Data-informed safety and prevention strategies

Data can reveal many elements of retail crime, but it’s the human touch that interprets these patterns, strategizing on the “how” of prevention.

For example, if stores are seeing an increase in repeat offenders exhibiting serious behavior, you can leverage data and insights to better understand why that’s happening – and importantly, to responsibly connect the dots on the “who” of these serious behavior events.

With data, AP/LP leaders and regional managers are empowered to make these kinds of decisions with confidence, and prioritize in ways that make the most sense. With data, going from observation and strategy to action and outcome is faster and more scalable.

Bridging the crime intelligence gap with insights

Rich intelligence bridges the gap between retail security teams and their partners in the community, notably law enforcement. It provides a solid foundation for collaboration, offering clear, actionable intelligence, and empowers human-led outcomes as a result of meaningful conversations with law enforcement.

Resource efficiency

With access to insights, retailers can ensure that their resources—ranging from personnel to technologies—are deployed in the most impactful way. By identifying patterns revealed by data, retailers can adjust staffing levels for security guards and greeters in response to crime rates, and reinforce prevention tactics for stores most commonly targeted by offenders.

What’s required for data-informed safety strategies

You have to set the bar high for the data you receive in order to derive the most meaningful insights. Unstructured data leads to incomplete information – which means you don’t have the full picture necessary to make fully informed decisions.

Here’s what you need from your data in order to derive the best insights possible:

It has to be structured

Data chaos is an all-too-common scenario where the information available becomes more of a hindrance than a help. This is particularly common when dealing with unstructured data, which presents as cumbersome walls of text or disorganized form fields. Extracting precise, actionable insights from bulky narrative statements requires extensive effort.

Structured data is the first step towards clarity and actionable insights. When each piece of information is categorized and stored in a designated field, you’re able to more easily search through and analyze data, quickly identify and extract key insights, and ensure your data is more accurate and reliable overall.

Structured data begins with your event and incident forms. They have to be powerfully simple and encourage action across the organization.

Is your data structured?

• Is your data organized in a consistent, logical format that can be easily understood and used by different team members?
• Can you quickly locate specific data points when needed? 
• How efficient is your search capability across datasets?
• Does your current data structure allow for easy analysis and visualization to identify trends, patterns, and anomalies?
• Are there clear protocols for how data should be entered and maintained to avoid discrepancies and ensure uniformity?

It has to be connected throughout your organization

For insights to be truly impactful, they must be securely accessible across the organization, connecting disparate departments, systems, and tools and eliminating data silos. Data should be ingrained in your organizational strategy and tools. This interconnectedness ensures that insights gained in one area can inform actions in another, creating a cohesive plan that leverages the full breadth of your organizational knowledge.

Is your data connected throughout your organization?

• Can data insights securely flow across departments without barriers? 
• Are data insights integrated into all relevant aspects of your business strategy?
• How is data shared across your systems and tools? Are there interoperability issues that need addressing?
• Are the insights gained in one area of your business effectively informing strategies in other areas?

It has to be timely

The value of data diminishes with time. In retail environments, you have to make decisions swiftly, which means that the data you use to inform those decisions must be as timely or real-time as possible. Delayed or outdated data can lead to missed opportunities and reactive strategies that fail to address the root cause of issues.

Is your data timely?

• How current is the data you are using to make decisions? Are you working with the latest information available?
• Is there a delay in data availability that could be costing you opportunities or impacting your ability to react swiftly to market changes?
• Do you have mechanisms in place to ensure data is updated in real-time or near-real-time?

It has to be complete

Partial data leads to partial understanding, which in turn can lead to incomplete or ineffective strategies. Your data must provide a holistic view of your operations. A complete dataset offers a 360-degree view of your business, ensuring that no factor is overlooked and that every decision is informed by a comprehensive understanding of your retail environment.

Is your data complete?

• Does your data capture all aspects of your operations and interactions, providing a 360-degree view?
• Are there gaps in your data that could lead to misinformed decisions or overlooked opportunities?
• Are there checks and balances to identify and address data insufficiencies?

Drive impact with Auror Insights

Auror Insights helps turn your Intel into action with dynamic insights, and unlock answers for your team when they need it the most.

Outpace ORC: Identify your top ORC offenders, using your own internal definition of ORC to highlight offenders and trends related to their offending patterns.

Get ready, set, engage: Proactively engage your team where it’s needed most.

Help law enforcement help you: Deliver Insights for your law enforcement partners to action.

Explore your data: Search, filter, and compare events across your organization. Generate reports on-demand. 

Learn more about Insights: https://www.auror.co/product/insights