PUBLICATIONS

Adrian Beck with Colin Peacock's New Loss Prevention: Redefining Shrinkage Management, published by Palgrave Macmillan.

'New Loss Prevention: Redefining Shrinkage Management'

New book co-authored by University of Leicester criminologist

It is estimated that shrinkage – the euphemistic term used by the industry to cover financial losses that retailers face through spoilage, damage, error and theft – costs the global retail industry approximately $232 billion a year, equivalent to more than 50 per cent of bottom line profits for many retail organisations. Yet understanding why this persists in being such a resilient and costly problem has proved an elusive challenge, with the industry continuing to spend in excess of $46 billion every year trying to address it.

In this challenging new book, drawn from extensive research, the authors provide new insights highlighting how organisations have and can reduce shrinkage. Through adopting a systemic and systematic approach, premised upon a detailed understanding of the role failures in organisational processes can play in generating the opportunities for shrinkage to occur, the authors present a radically different perspective on managing the problem of retail loss. They question many commonly held preconceptions, in particular, that the problem is primarily due to external theft, and suggest that organisations need recognise more fully their role in creating operational frameworks that generate a myriad of opportunities for losses to occur.

More specifically this new book offers the reader:

• a comprehensive review of what is known to date about the scale and extent of shrinkage in the retail sector;

• a critical analysis of the traditional ways in which shrinkage has been managed;

• reflections on the broader retail context and how this impacts upon the management of shrinkage;

• a detailed review of how ‘shrinkage’ is defined and measured;

• new insights into the key role operational failures and opportunity play in creating shrinkage;

• effective ways to break the ‘shrinkage life cycle’ and maintain low levels of loss;

• a comprehensive model for tackling shrinkage – the ‘Loss Prevention Pyramid’;

• a detailed explanation of how to use the ‘Shrinkage Road Map’ – a management tool designed to identify organisational weaknesses and develop appropriate solutions.

This text offers one of the most comprehensive accounts of retail loss prevention to date and critically assesses current thinking on how the problem should be both conceived and addressed. Designed for students, academics and practitioners alike, it provides new insights into a problem that has plagued the retail industry since its inception.

Contents: Introduction • Retailing and Shrinkage in Context • Defining Shrinkage • Scale and Extent of the Problem • Understanding Shrinkage • Traditional Approaches to Loss Prevention • Operational Failure as a Driver of Shrinkage • Identifying Operational Failures • Introducing New Loss Prevention • Implementing New Loss Prevention

Authors: Adrian Beck is a Reader in Criminology and Head of the Department of Criminology at the University of Leicester, UK. Colin Peacock has global responsibility for shrinkage management, on-shelf availability and brand protection for Procter and Gamble.

• Title: New Loss Prevention: Redefining Shrinkage Management
• Author: Adrian Beck with Colin Peacock
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Price: £60.00
• Published: October 2009
• ISBN: 978-0-230-57583-7

Click here for more information and to order a copy.