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CLIENT OVERVIEW
A leading U.S. specialty retailer with hundreds of brick-and-mortar locations across the country and a rapidly growing footprint. With stores in a mix of suburban shopping centers, highway corridors, and dense urban areas, the company serves millions of customers annually and employs thousands of associates in its stores, distribution centers, and corporate offices.
As the company expands into new markets, its loss prevention and asset protection teams are under increasing pressure to keep both customers and employees safe while protecting inventory and brand reputation.
CLIENT SITUATION
Growth brought opportunity — but also new exposure to crime risk. The retailer’s Loss Prevention Manager was responsible for overseeing security across a wide, diverse portfolio of locations, including stores in higher-risk communities where theft, burglary, and other crime events had begun to climb. Initially, the company relied on a well-known crime risk reporting provider. Over time, several issues emerged:
- The reports were static and slow to update, making them less useful as conditions on the ground changed.
- The data lacked granularity, often giving a broad area risk score that did not reflect the reality of specific neighborhoods or trade areas.
- As the retailer accelerated expansion, the LP team struggled to keep pace with new store evaluations using tools that were not designed for fast, repeatable analysis.
Frustrated by out-of-date reports and limited utility, the retailer canceled the previous service. But as shrink, incidents, and exposure continued to grow, it became clear that the business needed a partner that could move at the pace of their business and match the complexity of their footprint.
PINKERTON SOLUTION
To meet this challenge, the retailer partnered with Pinkerton and integrated PCI into their holistic, people first, then hard assets security strategy. For existing locations, the LP and security teams built a triage framework around three key factors:
- High Shrink (inventory loss)
- High Incident (reported events in and around stores)
- High Crime Risk (PCI scores at and around each location)
Stores that scored high across this triad were prioritized for deeper review and investment. PCI made it possible to:
- Compare multiple locations side by side to differentiate between locations with truly elevated risk and those where shrink might be driven by internal or operational issues.
- Identify micropockets of risk around each location (for example, nearby neighborhoods with significantly higher property crime rates).
- See how crime risk changed month to month, allowing the team to respond quickly instead of relying on outdated annual snapshots.
For new and prospective locations, PCI became a standard step in the site evaluation process. Real estate and security teams used PCI side by side to:
- Compare crime risk across candidate sites in the same market.
- Understand how a new store’s location would sit within the wider neighborhood risk context.
- Build proactive security plans into the new store design before opening day.
Because PCI is delivered through easy-to-understand reports, adoption was smooth across departments. Real estate, security, and LP leaders could all speak the same language, grounded in the same data.
PCI insights translated directly into targeted security measures, focused where they were most needed rather than applied as blanket upgrades:
-> In higher risk locations, the retailer invested in measures such as:
- Riot glass and hardened storefronts
- Panic buttons and enhanced incident response procedures
- Upgraded surveillance and smarter camera placement
- Increased staffing focused on customer engagement and visible presence
-> In locations where PCI revealed moderate or declining crime risk, the retailer chose to:
- Maintain traditional security measures (standard CCTV, alarm systems, training)
- Avoid unnecessary spend on highend physical upgrades that data did not justify
By relying on PCI’s localized and frequently updated risk scores, the retailer could balance security spending with actual exposure, investing more where the data supported it and less where it did not.
BUSINESS IMPACT
The impact of PCI was both measurable and fast. Within just 2–3 months of systematically integrating PCI-driven insights and adjusting security measures based on their triage triad security strategies, stores in higher-risk markets reported meaningful reductions in crime incidents.
Encouraged by early results, the retailer plans to formally embed PCI into its annual security reviews and program updates.
Ultimately, PCI helped this retailer transform how it thinks about crime risk—from reactive, anecdotal responses to a proactive, data-driven strategy that protects people, preserves assets, and supports growth in challenging markets.
