End Users '20 under 40' 2017—Armando Martinez

Armando Martinez, 32

Regional loss prevention manager—Midwest, Bob's Discount Furniture

Manchester, Conn.

In his current role at Bob's Discount Furniture, Armando Martinez is responsible for “driving our loss prevention program in 21 retail stores in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Missouri, conducting audits, store investigation training, store safety, and security of our buildings, for example” he said. He also manages and maintains the company's loss prevention case management and audit management systems, as well as its website.

Since Martinez joined Bob's Discount Furniture in late 2015, the company has grown from 64 to 89 stores.

“I have helped to open 21 of those stores here in the Midwest,” he said. “So I have had the opportunity to play a heavily involved role in [the] planning and coordinating of our security systems in those new facilities and creating the roadmap for future buildings.”

A tech enthusiast, Martinez said it is exciting to see how far CCTV has come. “When I started in loss prevention 10 years ago, I was working at a store changing VHS tapes out of a VCR every day, and today we are tapping in remotely to NVRs from our home and viewing locations from anywhere,” he explained.

He continued, “Things like facial recognition, thermal technology, POS integration, analytics—all of these features are getting a lot more traction and becoming much more useful to businesses, not just from a loss prevention and security standpoint, but also to identify business patterns, be notified when VIP customers are in the store, etc.”

Maritnez also predicts an increase in smart technology being used in commercial physical security. “Like with access control using biometrics and voice recognition and the Internet of Things really becoming prevalent in the industry—all of those systems working together to create better efficiencies for our facilities and better communication for us and for the operators.”