10 Corporate Loss Prevention Ideas

Here are 10 Corporate Loss Prevention Ideas:

1. Place signs for every customer to see that they should have a receipt for every transaction made with your establishment. 

2. Automatically have that transaction put into your corporate database. This ties in with the next idea

3. In large cash offices, have at least two people that do not interact with each other and preferably separated by rooms. Randomly have a cash box sent out and audit the previous against the transactions in the system. Then the manager or you the owner needs to audit what that person brings to the bank.  

4. If you have been mulling a decision to promote one of two people into a high position of management and have made the mistake of telling both they were possibly going to get it. You may want to release the one you did not promote. History shows in both of Norman Jaspan's books ( a famous loss prevention management consultant) that a disgruntled manager has been the reason for $1000s to millions in losses. 

5. Regularly hire outside consultants to work inside of various departments to looks for irregularities. I worked at a Sears and needed a new battery for my motorcycle. I went to the counter and found it expensive. I only had $40 for an $88 battery at the time. The person said it was okay, took my money, no receipt but to pick up in the back of the dumpster. I was told the battery was from old stock being returned. I was really young but it was a few years when I realized they were stealing their own stock and later Sears put the hammer down after millions in auto parts losses over 15 years or so. The added personnel may cost money but not as much as losses due to ignorance.

6. Give responsibility to assistance managers and Jr Vice presidents to give accounts of upper management to 3rd party management consultants and make those reports mean something. Corporate laziness is at an all time high. Don't get caught up in your own company's bullshit

7. Mix it up. Send division, regional, and store or factory managers into different locations. Don't have set leadership if all they do is guide and not actually lead. 

8. Send in outsiders to perform warehouse, factory, and distribution center to do inventory. A corrupt manager has their own set of books.

9. If fuel is a huge expense in your business. Routinely give employees the job of checking the levels in every tank including the trucks and forklifts or use fleet management systems and technology to automatically see if the amount of fuel you have is in proper use. Imagine a retailer like WalMart having a manager who would fill a 500 gallon container per week and then sell it to his friends. He pockets all the cash and no one is the wiser. You say this is ludicrous but these are the types of losses that add up fast but lazy corporate executives are not incentified to look for problems. Oh this has happened all over America at one time or another. Shoes, wheelbarrows, clothing, lumber, beverages, commodities and so on.

10. Get out of the corporate office, regional office, division office and spend a great portion of your time inside the stores talking to your employees. You allow managers to suck the lives out of people in jobs you need them to keep. We have a Petco down the street that has lost 75% of their well trained employees and the manager is building their own personality cult even if it means pushing out people who like being there. Most people don't want to do retail but with a place that has pets being sold and walking around all day, you get people who want to be there. Allowing a shitty manager to treat them like piece of shit is your downfall and your fault. Get off your fat ass and go take a look inside the store asshole. 

There are lots of business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs who will look at this and ask, "Don't you mean employees?"

What you have to learn is this, most white collar crimes are minor, like pens, pads, and paper by employees. 

What I am talking about here, are the organized threats to your factory, department & grocery stores, medical clinics, and assembly shops. These big crimes are mostly committed by management. 

Ideas by William J Ritchotte II - Management Consulting in IT, Social Media, and Loss Prevention contact me on Twitter @BillRitchotte or writchotte@gmail.com