Thievery can send a business under, particularly theft from within. Any company that comes up with a solution to curb that problem is therefore likely to be onto a pretty profitable business model.
CNN Money recently ran an article on "inside jobs" plaguing the country's retail sector entitled 'Fighting the five-finger discount: No time to wade through security-camera footage? Help is at hand'.
The article focused on a company called Agilence, which scans stores for likely theft moments and analyses the results for the client.
The firm will have benefitted greatly from the online PR generated from appearing in a piece in a nationally-read news provider, particularly in light of the ubiquitous nature of the problem.
It is estimated that employees stole $15 billion from retailers last year. While this is a staggering figure, what is perhaps even more shocking is that it is 25 per cent higher than the amount thieved by shoplifters.
Agilence has identified a key problem area and looked to come up with a solution - and it's working.
Of course, cameras are not new and some might query as to how a firm is making money in the installation of in-store cameras. Surely that's an age-old business?
It's all a case of efficiency really. While most stores will already have closed-circuit television (CCTV) in place, they do not have the time or man power to go through hours of security tape to find a five-second clip of an employee stealing.
What Aglience offers is a program that synchronizes raw security camera footage with point-of-sale data to compile a collection of still images of likely theft moments.
These moments are then scanned by a team of experts, who, if they notice anything sinister, contact the store in question and inform the proprietor.
The business owner is then in a position to monitor a larger portion of that section of the tape and decide on the best form of action.
The technology is only getting better too, with University of Florida criminologist Richard Hollinger telling the news provider: "[Computers] soon may be smart enough to send a text message to alert a manager who's actually in the store and can do something about."
Thieves may soon have nowhere to hide.
© Adfero Ltd
