Why AP needs to think outside shoplifting
A retailer was missing $5 million in coffee. The answer was not theft. Khris Hamlin of RILA on moving asset protection from cops-and-robbers to total retail loss.
If a retailer is missing $5 million in coffee, the first thought is theft. In this case the answer was detective work, not extra security.
Khris Hamlin is RILA's Vice President of Asset Protection and Retail Technology, with thirty years in the field, from the floor to the C-suite. The missing coffee happened to a RILA member. The retailer chose not to jump to conclusions. Deep investigation showed the shortage began before the product ever reached shelves: coffee was expiring in the distribution centre because a merchant had ordered over market demand.
When asset protection is stuck in the cops-and-robbers model, focused only on theft, companies miss cases like this. They prevent loss reactively rather than managing inventory health as a whole. Worse, the enforcement-first framing positions AP as a cost centre, first to be cut when budgets tighten.
Khris champions a different model, Total Retail Loss, which takes an investigative approach and often finds its answers in operations, supply chain, and merchandising, not the parking lot or the register.
Stop policing. Start building operational intelligence.
Shrink is a symptom, and crime is not the only cause. AP's job is to find where the business is losing inventory and patch the leaks. Sometimes that is theft. Sometimes it is not. But too often AP leaders stay in the enforcement mindset, seen as "the theft people" by themselves and their peers, which holds back their careers and the organisation's growth.
Video AI is what makes the broader model practical, because it gives complete premises awareness and the ability to act, and it is moving from cutting-edge to standard. Khris's three steps for AP leaders who want to make the leap:
1. Identify non-AP business needs, then pitch technology as the solution
CFOs are rarely excited to spend on security infrastructure. But with video AI, cameras do more than record thieves; they are digital workers with implications for customer service and merchandising. Before making a request, identify the customer-facing or revenue-facing problem the investment also solves. When Khris led AP at a major retailer in the early days of buy-online-pick-up-in-store, he framed a camera request around improving BOPIS accuracy, not loss prevention.
You can't just say, I need new cameras. You need to explain how you're not only solving for your issue, but improving and enhancing the business.
2. Use KPIs that prove revenue impact
For the last decade of his AP career, Khris used company sales targets as his KPIs, not apprehension rates or case closures. If your performance review is built on enforcement metrics rather than business outcomes, you are positioning AP as a cost centre.
When you position yourself as business leader first and AP leader second, every decision you make will be focused around improving customer experience and driving more sales. Your metrics need to reflect that direction.
3. Think like an executive: collaboratively
Total Retail Loss cannot happen in a vacuum. Identify two or three functions where AP decisions clearly connect to business outcomes, such as real estate, operations, or merchandising, and ask for standing time in their quarterly planning. If marketing wants a sidewalk sale at a high-theft location, a reactive AP leader says no. A strategic one asks about the underlying objective and offers other ways to hit it.
Be curious. If real estate is making a decision to take a store into a different market, what's the reasoning behind that? How can asset protection support that goal?
Physical AI in action
One nationwide retailer used Spot AI to collect data on how customers move through its stores, and reorganised layouts around it. The result was a lift in sales of key items, without reinventing the LP team or its tools. As the retailer put it: "We figured out a placement of our Kobe jersey that pulled traffic into other areas, giving customers ideas for other products to pair it with."
What it means to protect assets is changing. Video AI has given AP leaders a depth of visibility they did not have before. The question is whether they use it to catch thieves, or to run the business.