The ground-breaking trial, which is to take place at Boots’ Mansfield store, incorporates a comprehensive range of measures – including Electronic Point of Sale (EPoS) data analysis, networked video and video analytics – within a single package. The aim is to deliver a robust solution that will help in tackling fraud, theft and shrinkage.
Boots is a long-standing customer of PCMS’ Vision SmartStore product, which uses transactional data to identify exceptions to operating norms that indicate possible shrinkage. The new initiative represents ‘the next generation’ of loss prevention, integrating networked CCTV and video analytics alongside SmartStore. By doing so, it enables retailers to identify such anomalies through the real-time analysis of security camera footage such that an instantaneous response can be made to instances of shrinkage.
According to Robert Jennings (Boots’ head of loss prevention), the trial is going to set new standards across the retail sector. “The scope of the pilot scheme we have implemented with PCMS is unique within the industry, and places us at the forefront of the fight against shrinkage,” Jennings told info4security. “The programme was designed to examine ways of increasing profitability and improving the customer experience by making existing systems, such as CCTV cameras, work much harder for the end user. It also offers wider Stakeholder appeal with features that are equally applicable to marketing and management functions as they are to the discipline of loss prevention.”
Jennings continued: “The video analytics software has been designed to monitor footage from across the network of in-store surveillance cameras and alert store personnel immediately whenever certain behaviour patterns are recognised. The system can recognise when customers spend more than a certain amount of time at a particular shelf, but may also be configured to identify ‘variables’ such as congestion, till queue length or even spillages of substances in the aisles.”
Richard Smith, the managing director of PCMS Group, also spoke to info4security about the new initiative. “The pilot scheme we’ve been running with Boots is the only working implementation of a data mining solution running in combination with networked video and video analytics, offering retailers a total solution for addressing shrinkage across its entire estate,” he commented. “The comprehensive approach we’ve put in place represents the next generation of thinking in the loss prevention field, allowing retailers to benefit from much greater efficiencies throughout their organisations.”
