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Shoprite does intelligent analysis

Retailer deploys exception reporting tool integrated with video surveillance solution to provide increased business intelligence for improving operational efficiencies.

Sensormatic Retail Solutions announces the deployment of Sensormatic Analytics business intelligence solutions, through its authorised business partner NewCo Technology, to help Shoprite reduce shrink and boost profits. As Africa’s leading food retailer, Shoprite will use these comprehensive tools chain wide to monitor cashier activities in more than 1084 outlets, increasing the Sensormatic Analytics global customer base to more than 17 084 stores.

As a robust reporting and performance improvement tool for retail loss prevention and operations, the Sensormatic Analytics suite provides retailers with essential POS activity data to help uncover various sources of store losses and reduce shrink. The NaviStor Point of Sale (POS) platform’s investigative capabilities for identifying fraud, integrated with video surveillance, can assist top retailers like Shoprite to combat shrink to meet profit margin goals.

A serious threat to the bottom line, worldwide shrink cost retailers almost $115 billion last year according to the 2009 Global Retail Theft Barometer. Customer theft (including shoplifting and organised retail crime) caused the greatest shrinkage loss at $48,9 billion (42,5% of total shrinkage and 1,3% higher than reported in 2008), followed by employee theft at $40,7 billion (35,5% of shrinkage).

Part of the Shoprite Group of Companies that attracts 60 million customers per month, the Shoprite chain remains the core business of the Shoprite Group and its main brand. Its operational strategy put the Shoprite brand in an excellent position to expand into the African market outside of South Africa where its population has grown from one store in Lusaka, Zambia in 1995 to 149 stores in 16 countries today. With their expanding chain of supermarkets and large-format superstores, Shoprite faced the reality of increased shrink while offering customers a convenient shopping experience. They required a corporate-wide solution to address internal shrink and integrate with video surveillance system to help monitor all cashier transactions.

Based on its requirements, Shoprite chose Sensormatic Analytics NaviStor POS which provides easy-to-create exception rules that allow Shoprite to identify and fix problem stores, transactions and cashiers before they create shrink and lost sales. To help drive additional value from their investment Shoprite integrated the Intellex video surveillance system to help investigations.

“We tested Sensormatic Analytics NaviStor POS in 27 stores in South Africa and conducted an inventory count at the beginning, then in three months and again in six months; and with this business intelligence tool we realised a significant reduction in shrink,” said Michael Greeff, group loss prevention manager. “By integrating Intellex video surveillance over every POS with the reporting capabilities of NaviStor we were able to identify quickly and accurately if employee transactions were normal or suspicious cases. The Sensormatic Analytics team offered an intelligence solution that increased our data mining capabilities and justified our investment in rolling it out to the rest of the chain.

“Working with NewCo Technology enabled us to implement a solution that met our unique needs for providing a satisfying customer experience while combating theft. As many leading global retailers have realised, their investment in store business intelligence technologies is one of the best ways to drive operational efficiency, maximise profits and improve shrink to be better positioned for future growth,” added Greeff.

According to John Smith, Tyco’s vice president of Retail Sales for Europe and the Middle East, “This represents an exciting win for us, as Shoprite is the largest retailer in the Middle East and Africa and has been a customer for many years. Also Shoprite is the first major retailer in that part of the world using a sophisticated approach for extending the physical security environment, utilising additional layers of protection offered by the Sensormatic Analytics solution integrated with Intellex video surveillance and EAS.”

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