The retail security contract company Lodge Security is to provide protection for Poundland’s UK stores and distribution centres. Over the past two years Lodge has been operating its Elite Store Detective programme from the LodgIC Intelligence Centre, where national and local data on crime incidents is analysed and used to deploy protection for what the security firm calls a maximum return on security investment.
Pictured left to right are Andrew Cockerill of Lodge Security, Sarah Frain of Poundland, and Stuart Lodge.
Sarah Frain, Profit Protection and Assurance manager, Distribution and CSC at Poundland, says: “Lodge Security has worked with Poundland for more than five years and has provided a great service which has now developed with technology additions to achieve an even more effective solution. The operatives we receive from Lodge are always highly trained and professional when dealing with day-to-day issues and figures are reported back clearly to management. Furthermore, they provide confidence to our staff whilst making them feel safe and secure in the workplace.”
West Midlands-based Poundland and Lodge are now looking at ways to deploy other technology from the intelligence centre, such as the ability to analyse retail transactions through the use of Transpeye for data mining of EPoS, online transactions and other store systems, to then identify any sources of loss in real time and the relationships between apparently isolated incidents.
Lodge could then analyse and track any patterns of crime, to enable investigators to attribute recurring losses to known criminals and gangs, who can be identified from in-store CCTV recordings. Lodge detectives can then stop the offenders in-store. Lodge says that in many instances it has been able to track a gang’s activity around the UK and assess the probability of where and when they might strike next.
Stuart Lodge is CEO of Lodge Service International, a third generation family-run business that has its 100th anniversary in 2019. He says: “Retailers are increasingly alert to the scale of the threat from organised retail crime. A string of small, seemingly unrelated criminal acts are often committed by the same gang; if they think they can get away undetected each time they will keep coming back.
“Through the blended use of our specialist teams in the field and technology, our intelligence centre is quickly able to map related losses and then stop them fast.”
Visit www.lodgeservice.com.
