A key element in annual business results is the effort put into loss prevention plans in our stores or supermarkets. In the process of identification in vulnerable points in retail, it would be considered from the total integrity of our collaborators and clients to the risks that are run with respect to the own facilities in which we operate our stores.

Whenever we hear the term loss prevention we refer to robberies, but this is not necessarily so, since loss prevention covers a wide range of operations and operations around them. There are more and more retailers that include the processes to identify all these vulnerabilities and risks in their annual business plans, which will result in the strong decrease of losses.

Loss Prevention Strategy

The main requirement to be able to carry out a successful prevention strategy must be the owners’ total conviction of the need to anticipate, prevent and fight against what is considered risk of loss, identifying all that may impact the personnel assets of the company. After all this, the risk of loss agenda must stay every year.

The annual risk agenda will possess 4 principal elements:

Personal: It implies the responsibility and actions of our associates.
Policies and procedures: Creation and follow-up of the internal document for all employees where the company’s rules are clarified.
Technology: Controlling the proper use of all tools available in our stores, both personal use, as well as monitoring and control.
Infrastructure: It means that all our facilities must be perfectly prepared and comply with safety standards.

Training will be necessary for our personnel, linked to the situations and conditions that are determined in the annual prevention plan and is necessary for all natural processes in daily operations to be fulfilled.

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One of the mistakes that retailers make is to believe that their business does not have any important significant risks, or that we already have enough with the plans that are executed year after year without inserting new ones. This error is almost always linked to the idea that these prevention plans involve enormous costs, but in any case, this must be counted as an investment, because it is a great investment that will save you billions in losses in the future.

To achieve all the objectives we have detailed, internal control must be organized in several components:

Control environment. Both staff and clients must have the full conviction of being in a 100% controlled environment against significant risks.
Evaluation of risks. Always maintaining evidence and evaluation of all risks.
Control activities. Unlike the control environment, control activities are those that exist to minimize the risks.
Information and constant communication. It covers the feedback process that must exist in our stores.
Continuous monitoring. Internal audits.
Trust control evaluations. Examine constant prevention control with employees. In conclusion, no matter the size of the business, we can all suffer losses. Success will be in our prevention systems in order to minimize them.