Set a thief to catch a thief. This old adage offers many clues about the problems in the world. If the owner of this store hates the thought or losing stock to thieves, and wants to arrest the annual drain on his profits, he needs to do more than just purchase a security system.
This store has thousands of products that can easily be placed in one’s pocket. The owner must lose thousands of dollars’ worth of products each year. It is a busy store whose staff members appear to be rushed off their feet. So the owner has invested in a range of cameras and monitors. As a customer walks into the store, a large TV monitor relays the customer’s face onto the monitor, as if to prove that a monitoring system is in place.
Unfortunately, the control panel is within easy reach. Any customer can press any of the buttons to pause or stop the recording. A sophisticated criminal could take the whole unit and run. However, the purpose of this entry is not so much to show you the stupidity of the location of the control unit, but the absurdity of the yellow Post-It note placed on the side of the TV. Guess what it’s there for. It outlines the step-by-step instructions on how to turn the system on and off.
This means that anyone who does not even know how to use these recording devices can follow the simple instructions, courtesy of the owner. The man is smart enough to run a large business, yet he is not bright enough to think like a criminal. If you want to satisfy your customers, you have to know what matters to them. If you want to delight your partner, you must learn to see life and love from their perspective. Similarly, if you are trying to outsmart criminals and thieves, you have to think like they think. This story shows that even smart business operators who can run a complex retail enterprise, are lacking in so many other areas. Here, it is blatantly obvious that they have no idea about security. Pilferage and shrinkage represents the bulk of all a store’s losses. If something so important can be so neglected, imagine how much more other areas of the business might be overlooked, including marketing, finance, merchandising, staff management, planning, stock control, pricing, cash flow, banking, insurance, and a host of other areas in which the owner might be just as lacking in skill and attention. One major weakness points to other potential weaknesses.
Comments are closed.