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By Matt Pillar, Editor In Chief

Publisher Melissa Morris recently posted a LinkedIn discussion regarding the efforts of the Loss Prevention Foundation's certification programs, and what ensued was a meaningful conversation among retail LP pros — grizzled veterans and greenhorns alike — about the dynamics of the job. The general consensus is that it's changed; it's far more high-tech, far more collaborative with other departments, and a far cry from the store gumshoe scenario of days gone by. It's also far more competitive, with fewer jobs available, more training (much of it high-tech) necessary, more crime to contend with, and smaller budgets available to contend with it. For its part, the LP Foundation is getting great reviews for its certification programs, which are giving those who pursue them a head start in the race.

For our part, Integrated Solutions For Retailers has for years been reporting about the technology on which retail LP pros are leaning to do their jobs successfully. The LP community has come to recognize us a go-to source of information and case studies on the integration of exception reporting software, the multidisciplinary benefits of video analytics, the sophisticated BI tools retailers are using to recognize and track ORC (organized retail crime), and so on. But does all the powerful technology available to our retail LP professionals equate to a Paul Bunyan scenario, one in which your LP personnel are bravely but ignorantly staring into the 1280x1024-pixel screen of their demise? Will your store and DC detectives watch the end of their careers flash by them at a rate of 12 frames per second?

I don't think so.

A recent conversation with Security Resources General Manager Curt Kugler and Business Development Manager Kris Vece solidified my stance that technology cannot replace the value of the feet on the street. I'll publish a Q&A with Vece and Kugler in an upcoming issue of the magazine. Here, I'll quickly point to two scenarios where Security Resources and companies like it are providing human resources to combat crime in ways that technology simply can't.

The first is sexy: covert operations. If you're not a student of LP as a discipline, when you consider retail security you probably don't think past Kevin James' character as Paul Blart, Mall Cop. But every day, Kugler and his company are deploying clandestine ORC and internal crime warriors to DCs and warehouses near you. These operatives are going deep undercover and working with law enforcement officers including the FBI to gather intelligence that surveillance technology simply can't.

This isn't the stuff of fake moustaches and bad wigs, either. If I tell Kugler I need an LP Certified, Asian-American DC worker who can drive a Toyota lift truck, who knows the Dematic automated pick-to-light system, and who is trained on Epicor case management tools, Kugler will get me that guy. When's the last time you relied on a camera to gain rapport with a suspected group of organized retail criminals hanging out on your dock doors?

The second is not as sexy, but just as important: disasters and emergencies. Your mind immediately replays CNN footage of looting and violence in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and while Katrina provides an obvious and extreme example of the need for human LP intervention, less obvious disasters and emergencies happen to retailers in America every single day. Weather emergencies, power outages, shootings and violence, accidents, smash-and-grabs and other forms of criminal theft — they're all capable of disabling the technology you rely on to monitor your stores and tell a real-time story about what's going on there. When Katrina drowned New Orleans, New England-based retailers with stores on the Gulf had little use for disabled cameras and waterlogged DVRs. They were getting reports from real people — thousands of them — who were deployed in vehicles with light bars and in uniforms with badges and, yes, in some cases guns, to protect assets from looters and relay the news of damage and loss.

All this said, I don't think the ORC epidemic and great big hurricanes are our only hope of sustaining the human element of LP. These are macro examples of scenarios that play out microscopically a hundred times a day across a big retail enterprise. As long as the retail sector employs more than 14 million people and the criminal element finds it a target, there will be a hand to shake in the LP department.