Recently we have noticed a spike in theft related incidents and just last night I saw a segment on television where shop lifting has risen nearly 8% over the past 2 years. This comes at a cost of millions of dollars to Australian businesses each year. When I say we have noticed an increase I am saying this based on hard figures that I collate on a daily basis. The real cost to business is never really known because of the lack of data supporting all aspects around theft.

How well is your business positioned to first, recognise when theft is an issue and secondly, what are your procedures for dealing with this potential threat? When ever the word recession is mentioned or the current unemployment rate, one turns to thinking, just how many more people are doing it a little bit tougher than previously? This leads to a change in habits displayed by different persons and before too long this can easily turn to minor bouts of theft. Desperate times lead people to resort to desperate measures and quite often they will do anything just to get by.

Now in the first instance I have been talking about the potential threat to your business from theft by persons doing it a little tougher than normal. What systems do you have in place to alleviate this threat, how well are your staff trained in looking for telltale signs surrounding theft?

One business that I am associated with at present is in the service and entertainment industry, where we are positioned to monitor patrons through surveillance systems with personnel trained to look for these particular threats. Often they are able to pinpoint certain persons acting in a suspect manner prior to there ever being an issue and we are positioned to act immediately, thus reducing the amount of incidents recorded. All too often we need to be aware that the theft may not be from us but may be from patrons that are visiting our establishment. Pick pocketing has been highlighted recently as a factor faced by the larger businesses where the patronage is a little higher, however this can happen just as easily in a small shop.

These factors then become an opportunity for your business to grow its loyal band of customers, through the action of making your business a safer place to do business. It only takes a small amount of bad publicity for the word to spread about your business and before long your visitation numbers are in decline. Of course you would be aware of this, because you do have a system for monitoring visitation numbers at regular intervals in place, right?

How many avenues of theft could there be?

Give me a few more days and I shall go through some more.