Vector Security partners with Risk Management Services to improve loss prevention for national accounts

PITTSBURGH—Vector Security is teaming with Risk Management Services, a loss prevention service for business operators that do not have a related in-house department, to address the rise in employee theft among national account customers.

Michael Grady, executive vice president of national accounts for Vector Security, said in a prepared statement that the partnership allows Vector to review information gathered at the point of sale, with the goal to “better understand areas for improvement in business processes or to address internal issues that contribute to losses.”

The partnership is timely. It comes in the wake of a National Retail Federation survey of organized retail crime that found 96 percent of retailers have been victims of ORC in the past 12 months. While overall shrink rates have decreased, retailers are seeing a rise in activity. The majority of retail shrinkage (43 percent) last year was due to employee theft. Shoplifting comprised 35.7 percent of total losses, up from 32 percent the previous year.

“Retailers need new solutions to address these trends,” Jim Close, managing partner at Risk Management Services, said in the statement. “Alongside Vector Security, we now have the ability to package solutions that analyze data to help drive our customers' business performance and address these growing crime issues head on.”

In the past several months, Vector Security and Risk Management Services have conducted market research, product evaluation and customer meetings to better understand what current customers are doing in regard to point-of-sale investigations, the statement said.