Running at the Regents Park Marriott Hotel, organisers say it offers ways to cut shrinkage from staff theft, fraud and process error.

Day one starts with Prof Martin Gill of consultancy Perpetuity, on what makes a cheat. The trademark of Prof Gill, a Leicester University criminologist, is to talk to offenders to learn about security and risk from their point of view, how they see things. In the case of dismissed staff, it's a way to understand why they were dishonest and what you can do to minimise fraud in stores. Prof Gill has also spent time with retail thieves, to learn from them why for example some products are more stolen than others, and what in the opinion of thieves makes a product easy to get away with. Security managers as a result, he argues, can establish the right security measures.

Other speakers are Robert Jennings, head of loss prevention and security at Boots; Adrian Beck, of the University of Leicester; Paul Hollignworth, head of loss prevention for UK and Ireland, at The Body Shop; and Richard Quinn of The Co-operative Group. On the DIY retail side, speakers are Mike Finch, divisional stockloss manager at B&Q, and Gill Yardley, profit protection manager, supply chain, at Homebase.

And in a case study on tackling internal loss in the supply chain, two men from Procter & Gamble, Ewan Forsyth, customer logistics manager and Phil Merrell, distribution centre director, will discuss how P&G are extending their reach further down the supply chain, working with retailers.

A theme for the day is that employees are important - keeping the right staff and avoiding the wrong ones. That is the message from Arjun Medhi, staff fraud adviser at CIFAS. Topics include pre-employment screening; and building a culture of loss prevention, making (the majority, non-security) staff aware.

Day two topics include internal interviews nd investigations, internal audit, and learning from criminal patterns in stores such as sweet-hearting; and resale of stolen goods online, through eBay and other marketplaces. Speakers include Ady Houghton, head of corporate audit, Iceland; Ian Paton, former head of security at Focus DIY; and Richard Larwance, loss prevention manager at Monsoon.