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By Melissa Morris, Publisher, Integrated Solutions For Retailers/Retail Solutions Online

According to the 2009 Retail Theft Barometer, spending on retail loss prevention in North America equaled .3% of sales ($24.5 billion), but North American retail loss was 1.43% of sales ($115 billion). When retailers are generally losing four-and-a-half times more than they're spending to deter that loss, shrink becomes an organizational problem that transcends the responsibility of the LP (loss prevention) department.

Whether you're CIO of an international specialty chain, a line of business manager for a regional grocer, a systems administrator for a national hardware coop, or anywhere in between, you're impacted by organizational LP initiatives. LP solutions are increasingly both technical and interdepartmental, and virtually no retail professional can (nor should) do her job independent of shrink consideration.

According to a brand-new report from Retail Systems Research, ORC (organized retail crime) ranks among the top three business challenges identified by retail corporate offices. In fact, shrink in general continues to rise as a priority for retailers, with 78% of those which RSR labels "winners" (those retailers reporting better than 3% year-over-year comp store sales growth) reporting LP as more important this year than last.

These realities are why we've committed to bringing you NextLP, Strategies for next-generation loss prevention. It's an exclusive monthly e-mail newsletter on LP integration that's designed for all titles and departments in the LP circle of influence. Each month, we'll bring you exclusive content from the leading minds in retail LP, case studies and feature stories from Integrated Solutions For Retailers and Retail Solutions Online, and the latest news from the vendor community. Would you like to contribute to the conversation? Share your expertise with us, and perhaps your content will be used in future editions of NextLP.