It's likely that we have all at some point wandered a little too close to those white or cream pedestals that discreetly guard the entrances of a local store and, upon hearing the accusatory beeps and warbles, endured the rounds of bemused "What?  Me?!" glances exchanged between the innocent browsers.

In which case, you've just fallen prey to and Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS). The system in place in many retail areas to prevent customers and staff wandering off with goods they have failed to pay for. However, in a market place where innovative and integrated services can really set you apart from standard deterrent and detection packages, we caught up with one UK firm who remain intent on adding maximum value to its retail customers with a more complete portfolio of products.

ADT, the Middlesex based fire and security company is rightfully proud of their credentials. As the UK's leading provider of electronic and fire security solutions (protecting 89 of the top 100 UK companies no less) even the name of their registered office "Security House" resonates with the confidence about the quality of the products and services that they provide.

Their entry level EAS, for example, utilises Acousto-Magnetic technology which they firmly believe it is the most accurate (less likely to set off a false alarm or be affected by electrical equipment) and cost effective. It ensures high value items can be protected with a prominent tag; while even small pocketable items can be protected with an adhesive label.  With this ‘source tagging' - the provision of anti-theft labels or tags to products at the point of manufacture - there is also no requirement to use expensive staff time to apply them to goods in store.

However, it is striving for the added value; the desire to cater for a demand for greater management information and control that has pushed ADT to innovate further. As Sally Cotter, Head of Corporate and Government Marketing at the firm explains, "ADT works closely with the world's leading retailers to achieve a real insight into the unique challenges the industry faces. Our greatest skill," she continues, "is working as your security partner to develop integrated solutions needed to protect revenue and enhance profitability." 

This skill and an understanding of the marketplace have led to the pioneering development of ‘SmartEAS'. This sophisticated solution offers footfall data, stock management information and more, to really enable the business owner to fully understand their unique shrinkage footprint. Cotter continues, "SmartEAS closes the loop between what happens at the entrance/exit of the store, the staff response to alarm situations and management of information by senior management and loss prevention teams." 

Furthermore, the alarm management reports allow retailers to identify response times to alarm activations in store and any patterns in trading where there is likely to be an increased risk of theft. Information recorded by the SmartEAS readers can be downloaded, emailed or sent by SMS to the management team as an incident occurs ensuring excellent dissemination of data to the relevant persons quickly and effectively.

One other area that ADT believes represents the direction of security solutions is advanced data collection in store. Sally Cotter confirms, "The future of retail security is about turning reactive security approaches into proactive ones that help reduce shrinkage further and provide business intelligence that helps run store operations even better."

Their service "Smart People" counting allows retailers to set benchmarks for consistently high performance across their stores by gathering information on traffic patterns as people enter and leave their stores. This data can help store management optimise staffing, gauge responses to promotions and determine sales conversion rates. And, of course, the application can be deployed in a standalone operating mode or be integrated with "Smart Alarm" management and connected to a retailer's enterprise network.

In networked mode, this solution can collect data from the exit counters and transmit it to a central database using the retailer's existing network infrastructure. At headquarters, this traffic flow data can be merged with other retail information such as POS data to give both executives and managers a range of indicators to gain key store performance insights. And these, of course, can be crucial to maximising operational efficiencies, customer service, marketing effectiveness, and strategic planning efforts of a retailer.

So next time someone inadvertently sets off a pedestal, maybe take a moment to consider that those ever-so-slightly sheepish looks and shrugs may well be being monitored by a much more comprehensive suite of data management and reporting tools than you may have initially thought!

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