LPRC - CrimeScience Episode 58 – Team Safety, Training, and Building Resilience During COVID-19 ft. Debbie Perano (Bunnings)

Episode Date: August 18, 2020

In this episode of LPRC CrimeScience, Debbie Perano, Loss Prevention Manager at Bunnings, joins Dr. Read Hayes to discuss how her team dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, including team safety & training, strategies, priorities, and interdepartmental collaboration. The post CrimeScience Episode 58 – Team Safety, Training, and Building Resilience During COVID-19 ft. Debbie Perano (Bunnings) appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we aim to explore the science of crime and the practical application of the science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners, as well as other professionals. We would like to thank Bosch for making this episode possible. Take advantage of the advanced video capabilities offered by Bosch to help reduce your shrink risk. Integrate video recordings with point of sale data for visual verification of transactions and exception reporting. Use video analytics for immediate notification of important AP-related events and leverage analytics metadata for fast forensic searches for evidence and to improve merchandising and operations. Learn more about extending your video system beyond simple surveillance in zones one through four of LPRC's zones of influence by visiting Bosch online at boschsecurity.com. Welcome everybody to another episode of Crime Science Podcast. And we're really excited to be joined for this episode by Deb Perano. And by the way,

it's 8 p.m. U.S. time on a Thursday. So that gives you an idea of the time difference challenges that we're excited about. So Deb is the head of loss prevention for Bunnings in Australia and New Zealand. And we're just going to spend a few minutes tonight talking about her team and the Bunnings LP team and what they've been up against and some of the actions that they're taking in Oz and in New Zealand uh particularly in light of the covid19 um and at the lprc we really want to take uh some extra time or some time if you will to reach out and talk to deb's team uh julian and others and uh check in on them how are they doing what are they dealing with what can we do to maybe support uh community down in Australia, New Zealand area? So I'm really excited to have you on to this episode of Crime Science, Deb. Welcome. Thank you. And thank you for having me. It's great. Thank you.

And for context, it's 10 a.m. Friday morning here in Australia, Melbourne. Perfect context. So let's talk a littlem. Friday morning here in Australia, Melbourne. Perfect context. So let's talk a little bit about your team. Like here in the U.S., and as we talked about before the podcast episode started recording, here we are in Florida, and we tend to lead the nation sometimes in some of the craziest and weirdest things. We have a phenomenon called Florida Man. And by the way, as a side note, most Florida men are not from Florida,

but they might reside here. So let's go to you, Deb. And what did you first start to hear about COVID-19? What did you and your team tap into? What kind of data? you and your team tap into? What kind of data? How did you start to prepare and respond and keep your team and others as safe as you could? Yeah, so what a phenomenon. And for New Zealand and Australia, particularly in Australia, we had just, or hadn't even really finished, we're coming out of, you know, some of the biggest and most intense bushfires that the country had experienced. So fairly anxious country at the time when COVID started evolving for us. And fortunately, for being down under, we have the opportunity to kind of watch things progress

and probably have that little bit longer to evaluate it and kind of process it and put in a plan of attack there. So Bunnings is a really, it's one of the biggest employers in um australia and it's a growing brand in new zealand and pretty significant there too so probably to give it a little bit of context about the bunnings business it's um a leading retailer in home improvement and lifestyle products uh in australia and new zealand and it's a major supplier of project builders and commercial trades people in the housing industry so when we had to take a plan for New Zealand being a different market to Australia and obviously be led by the different state governments or country governments and their directive so the plans that we formed had to have multiple scenarios for them

because each government actually did take a different approach to COVID. So our business formed a business continuity planning group from multiple functions. And we kind of planned out what we anticipated might happen and created multiple scenarios and then used every function there to kind of come up with, you know, how we would best support operations if we went into a partial closure. Would we be considered an essential service and be able to keep trading?

What do you even need to do? So a constant daily and I think twice daily catch-ups around the new information that was being fed through from the government and the health authorities about how to best manage or cope with this and we really just kept that direction at the forefront whatever the government and the health authorities were directing is the stance we took really easy and Bunnings is a very customer kaiwhai e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tātou e whare tāt So it can be quite easy for us to kind of overdo some things to keep people safe. So a bit of a balancing. And I suppose, like everybody, we wrote our playbook as we went along. And we learned things and we learned quickly.

But one of the great things I think that we did that will stick with me for a very, very long time is how our senior leaders really created a lot of open forums through, we've got a workplace chat like the Facebook page, but internal one, and created a lot of live streams where our team could, from across the country, from stores,

could just ask questions and throw things out there and talk about what they're anxious about or what they were nervous about or what do I do here. So it was a great forum for communication and a great forum for us to understand what do our team need to know? What are our customers telling our team? And how do we kind of react to that?

So lots of plans created, lots of working as we go. I think the first few weeks and probably six weeks into it, there was an enormous amount of effort, teamwork, hours put in to making sure that we did exactly what we needed to do. So in New Zealand, they actually went into lockdown, complete lockdown and over there the business was considered an essential service for trade only so we could only transact with trade builders who were doing essential services so there was quite a lot of compliance that needed to go in behind ensuring we were only selling to that category of customer. In Australia, we were able to stay open

and we could actually transact to anybody that came in, but a whole lot of complications kind of came in with that, which everybody else would have experienced as well with the physical distancing, the hygiene, went into a phase where we had to restrict some products, control entry exits, and we learnt that as we went as well. So, yeah, a lot of things learned. That became standard pretty quickly, and I think what underpinned all of that was our customer-centric, our team culture that we had, that is in our dna to take care of people

uh and that was at the forefront so um anything that was put into play was was is it the right thing to do and is this and how do we get that done you know it's interesting because um a lot of what you said and reflects what research shows and that the experience of many show. And that is, if you've already got a healthy culture, whether it's your family, in this case, an organization, an enterprise, a business, you're already one step ahead. And particularly if you've already got some good communications, pipelines, pathways. communications, pipelines, pathways. But if your leadership, the senior leadership, understands where it all begins, and that's not only taking care of the customer, but it's taking care of the team members, and they are the ones that will take care of the customers. So let's let's take care of them. That sounds pretty powerful. And from the beginning that you were

already set up, you were, you had the infrastructure, you had the culture, you had the belief, you had those pathways. Absolutely. And I think we just really leveraged that because that was in our DNA. So that's how we operate anyway. And it really did. It set us up really good just to carry on. Not saying it wasn't hard.

There was a lot of effort and a lot of stuff to do and a lot of change to make. But because of that spirit that is really in our business, I don't want to say it was seamless, but as, you know, Melbourne's just gone back into a second lockdown, we can pretty much say that that was seamless because we knew what to do, how to do it, how to communicate. That was all learned from the first time we went through that process. Although still acknowledging the anxiety, the frustration, and the uncertainty that people are feeling. So we now need to balance that whole, just because everybody did it well,

doesn't mean that they're not feeling something. Yes, yes. Huge points. And some of our team know that Deb and some of the Bunnings team have been up here, have visited the LPRC and the University of Florida, been to our lab. And Deb, just by the way, we've moved that lab, everything in there,

as Kevin, our producer, is on with us. But across the street, we now have four labs in line. Oh, wow. But we really enjoy exchanging ideas and understanding each other. But it's not just what's different, but it's amazing how many similarities there are to what you're experiencing across the board anyway from a loss prevention standpoint. What did you all do as far as some of your training to protect your people, protect your customer, and protect your assets and build resilience into your team to handle these things. As you said, as you go through an initial prep and then lockdown and then re-emerge and then now possibly go back in or are going in, so we went into lockdown in March.

In April, May, we really started having a look at what was happening. And we could see that, you know, theft was increasing. And some of our normal products that are always stolen, but the rate of theft really did get pretty high. whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare tātou, kia whare t So we have meet and greet team members or gatehouse team members. So in our kind of big boxes, we've got lots of big beautiful entries because normally our customers can come and go as they please. So I think for the American audience, you'd probably a Home Depot Lowe's type size building with a trade yard on one end and a nursery on the other.

So we had to control those entries. The team were physical distancing and really cautious and anxious, obviously, about getting too close to anybody. So our normal checks that we would do in those roles did fall away because the team felt they weren't safe to do. did fall away because the team felt they weren't safe to do. And you could see a trend where people were taking advantage of that situation and obviously the changing retail environment. So those people who were prone to take those opportunities were taking them. So we had to really look at that and work with the operations team

to say, let's come up with a way that we still need to do these activities because it's impacting our business. stores open during that period our products our power tools you know the security products the hardware and fixings items that are usually targeted we were open so we were the ones that you would come to to steal those so how do we help the team feel comfortable to still perform those checks you know ask to do bag checks to still check receipts and how do you do that safely. So we worked with the ops team and we came up with quite a campaign. Again, we utilised the communication forums that we've got,

which is our workplace, and created some short videos and demonstrated how to do those tasks again, COVID safely. And also we overlaid as well we also saw an increase in threatening situations reported obviously everybody's anxious not only our team but the customers that come in and you know you've got to wait longer and all of those things basically, you know, extrapolate out and create some frustration and not a great environment for the team to sometimes be in. So when we overlaid the stock loss trends with who is reporting these threatening situations, and we do believe they're probably underreported, we actually identified our top 20% of really high risk or hotspot locations. So other than the general kind of re-coaching and training in the videos and, you know, one pages and, you know, step by step how to do things safely, we also sent in our advising team.

Sometimes had to be virtual because, of course, they couldn't do store visits or, you know, there were travel restrictions on. kia whakai i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka whare i te reo ka we have a look at their store, what we can see, a little bit of a dial-in, and, you know, watch the entry exits for a little bit and say, OK, yeah, we can absolutely see that there's a bit of a gap there, this team member's uncertain, so, and here's how you can help coach your own team. This is the reasons why you need to do that and help them get back on track. So, we're now in a place now where we just refresh and reshare that information about how to still do those tasks that are really important to protect our borders, but how to do them COVID safely. Fantastic. And we enjoyed sharing some of the ideas here and ideas from there and with you and your team. and with you and your team. And, you know, just like having the strong culture,

the idea that you all were already using data-driven or evidence-based practice has made it such a great partnership and having you part of the community. And I can remember facilitating the Home Depot to have some communications with you all. Yes. Yes, and so they were excited to do that. And we work so closely here with Home Depot and Lowe's. And in fact, Logan, our team has gone and

we've got a lot of new imagery and camera feeds and things set up to do some really neat R&D with those retailers, as well as several others, curbside pickup and improving self-checkout ease and security. So what are some of the other things that you all are thinking about and doing that with your team as you continue to grow and guide your path? And who knows, we call it up here on radical uncertainty. What are some things, Deb, that you all see as a priority? Well, within the focus that we were already, the direction we were already going in, I think COVID has amplified

and we need to move a little bit faster. And as a business, we've been able to do that too. So essentially, you know, a hardware retailer that sells everything from the front gate to the back fence, you know, people want to come to your shop to kind of find the solution for their product. But COVID is creating a new customer experience for our industry, a bit more engaged online. Now, we had a plan to always to go online and then we had commenced

that in Australia and we were starting the planning for New Zealand. But we had to really expedite that and we delivered it really quick. So actually by the time New Zealand opened up again we had an online offer. We had a click and collect, click and deliver standard but we also created a drive and collect offer to kind of create another opportunity for contactless. So when your retail business is moving to another way of transacting with its customer, obviously the LP function needs to be completely in step with that because if there is going to be a customer interaction that would have been physical, but now it's virtual, you still need to online have detection and prevention tactics.

So it broadens your scope, obviously, as an LP function. So that is a big one for us. whakai tētahi koe i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te whare i te wh And we need to partner with that and make sure that we have the appropriate detection and prevention strategies in place across that platform as well, just like we would in store. COVID has also probably expedited the thinking into the front end of our store and how it's laid out. whakai tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whare tō te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te OAC so that's that's never going to go away and as we go into a world where there is an uncertain economic climate you know increase in unemployment you know the tendency will be for theft to increase and unemployment obviously natural human behaviour is that they're probably more likely to want a cheaper product so we'll buy stolen goods probably so we really need to disrupt ā kaiwhiura, tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou tātou whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te whakai te But at this stage, I think we can use all of that information so much better to create more informed and considered actions and strategies going forward. And again, the parallels are amazing. And as you probably well know, that is a priority here. And I'd like to get a perspective on in New Zealand, Australia, if it's similar, but here really for my whole career retailers in the LP AP field tend to be very open and share and really enjoy collectively working on whatever issue, whether it's organized retail crime or in this case, we had five calls, different weeks in a row

called cluster calls. And we had, because we've got 65, 70 retail chains to share. And it was amazing, the detail about the problems during COVID-19. And then during our civil unrest period, where there was a lot of looting, incredible amount of detail, tapping their data such as it is. I mean, we find out during these times, we are not collecting this or we're not collecting enough or we're not coding it so we can actually use it. But is it somewhat similar where you may not have a lot of cooperation with retailers and supply chain or operations in the same way that you do in LP? I think it's getting there. And I think the more you're willing to share,

the more that will get shared back. With Bunnings, we're fortunate to be part of a bigger corporate called West Farmers, and West Farmers does own quite a few other retailers. whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakura whakakakura whakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura whakakakura wh We have forums within all of the different groups already where we're full sharers. And talking about the team safety part, and this is another stream that comes under the loss prevention umbrella now that probably wasn't traditionally there. Team safety as far as when a situation is threatening or confronting, how do we best prepare our team to identify those signals? So, you know, number one, you know, the objective is not for it to escalate, but then if something does escalate,

how do you de-escalate it with at least impact on the team member as possible? So, you know, we pay a part in that because the physical security of the buildings is part of our scope. And we hold, I suppose, the expertise or the knowledge about, you know, how to manage people whose behaviour is a little bit dysfunctional. behaviour is a little bit dysfunctional. So those we're actually working with the whole West Farmers divisions on a collective strategy and the sharing of ideas

is priceless. And that's something like the role that I'm in now across as head of LP across Australia and New Zealand is a recent one. So I've been in this role for six months. I was before in the New Zealand business for nearly 15 years. So coming across here, I'm establishing my networks now.

And that is absolutely my goal. I just see the shared intelligence as being key to really disrupting ORC and doing our part to create safer communities. Excellent. And like you say, it is a built-in advantage. You're a little blessed there being part of West Farmers. Let me ask you also, AI, computer vision, now there's been a big move here in all areas.

And I thought you had a great comment, and it's one you hear in North America quite a bit, and that is COVID-19 has sort of pushed and escalated and forced the hand of innovation to rapidly move forward, whether it's how we do meetings to how we serve our customers and keep our people safe. But AI and computer vision has been a big thing here. And I'm just working with computer science and engineering colleagues at the University of Florida. We've secured one grant, and then we just got another grant from National Science Foundation. But we've had some new members. We've had Malang in Everseen and SensorMatic who have been here in Bosch.

And then now NVIDIA, who is our largest, our most capitalized, I guess, chip maker in the United States, but the biggest provider of GPUs and other technology and software platforms for AI development. And they've come in and provided tens of millions of dollars of new technology to the University of Florida. And then on the smaller side to the LPRC, they're supporting us with some new technology and some support. How is AI starting to play a little bit or a lot of a role? Or is that still coming? What is sort of your view right now, Deb, as far as from a loss prevention standpoint? I think it absolutely is a priority and it is part of the infrastructure, I think, and the team structure needs to be set up well first and then we add that in. And it will be useful, so useful to leverage the existing assets that we've already got. So we have a small portion of AI in our business. I absolutely want to grow that and it's on the trajectory.

And I need to work out a way or all the funding models that we put in. So, you know, the economic climate we're going to go into, we need to build a business that's going to be successful in the long term. There's investment needed in all of these things. So we really need to understand that return on investment and longer term. And I suppose in LP what we've done in the past a little bit is have a few bolt-ons.

And if they don't connect well, then we don't get the full benefit out of them. So I'm very big on making sure that things are very efficient and integrated and don't want to kind of like pop a piece on. And it's going to be even harder to do given, you know, the cost of doing business will be driven down so much because the economic climate is so uncertain going forward. So even though we may have experienced, you know, really good sales growth recently, you know, the idea is people have been at home or locked away, they've been able to not go on holiday, so the spend may have gone on

the home, and maybe that's been brought forward a little bit. So with so much uncertainty, an LP function really needs to make sure that any investment it makes is the right one. In any tech, you know, it evolves so quickly. So what we are planning to do right now, sorry, it took a while to get there. But what we are doing right now is working with other functions that also want AI in some form or another. The other thing we need to do, not just from a theft perspective, but is to reduce task in our stores. To drive profitable businesses, we need our teams to be freed up to serve as much as possible and create that amazing customer experience to keep the customer coming back. So whatever tasks we can take away from the store team is required as well.

So I'm really interested in technologies and tools that can really help take away tasks from the store leadership team because we don't have LP team members in every store. We do rely on our operations team to do a lot. tēnā koe te reo te whare, te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te whare te wh board and not just us. So we have actually kicked off a project in Oz that is integrated across all of those functions that all require something. And yeah, we're looking at tools that can help service all of us. I love it. It's a total enterprise effort and everybody's mutually supportive, but toward that end goal. And that's amazing, like you said, customer experience. And that's what's going to drive job security. And that's what drives everything. So,

you know, I love that. And rest assured, any and everything that you all would need as part of the LPRC community, please let us know. And we'll be standing up a page, a landing page, if you will, on our website and in our knowledge center that will sort of articulate to our members in the community what AI initiatives are underway and planned. And we can go into more detail later with you and dozens and dozens of retailers and with three or four dozen, you all saw when you were here that we can work in so many different formats of types of stores. We can get really strong learning loops and then feed that information and back and forth. So I'm excited about it. And the way you and the team at Bunnings and your team work and think about. We're looking at these things holistically. And you know we tell the green and red shopper story.

The green is who we want her to come to our stores, have amazing experience and outcomes, and then wants to come back. And the red shopper is the opposite. But they're intertwined, and LP is there to support both. And we're repelling the red guy to enable and provide confidence to her that, hey, this is a great place to shop or a great place to work. Yes, exactly, exactly. That's the goal. Anything that I should ask you about you, your team, the business, Oz and New Zealand?

What a big question. I think for us, you know, Down Under, it is now in a position where we just keep making sure that we help our business continue to drive our winning offer. And it's customer focused and it's team focused. And there's always the element of making sure that we don't just do things in LP to reduce stock loss, that's just a result, it's not the purpose of what we do. So yeah my team and I are really really focused on making sure that our thoughts are really aligned with the business and where the business wants to go and we really put

the support into what a support function is and drive some outcomes and help the business support that and across all channels so yeah the customer experience is going through its biggest change it's gone through in the last 20 years so I'm really excited about that level of change. And if you're looking for the positives out of COVID, it is that it has provided us the opportunity to really reframe and rethink and re-image and really check in. And I think for Bunnings, we've been able to check in and go, gosh, our culture, our team spirit, the way we behave in the way that we really do focus on doing the right thing it's true um and it's priceless like you mentioned earlier

you know by having that already uh in our blood and in our dna it has just afforded us the opportunity to to stay strong um and to show the community community that we really are a trusted brand and they can continue to trust us. Excellent, Deb. And I want to remind you and your team also that this is maybe an opportune year as far as LPRC impact and you all being able to participate since it will be virtual. And we made that decision back in April and have worked long and hard on the 12 sessions. And then Kevin working on the platform and delivery. So whether it's live, which is not necessarily practical for you, but recorded.

So maybe there's going to be some more and more opportunity through our app and all the knowledge center the learning modules that are being stood up and activated online and then now with the impact conference maybe that's a there may be some training tools and some components that you could put into training that you all do if something made sense so i just wanted to put that out and make sure thank you thank you yes that's that's great i will i will be there and um it is great like a um i really appreciate the lprc and the the um resources that are available um and we have actually recently we've come up against, you know,

we've just got to the end of our ideas on a particular problem that we've had. You know, and I did say to the team, I said, go to the LPRC now. If we're exhausted, our thought pattern, you know, let's use this resource. And you were brilliant. Your team was brilliant. So thank you very much for that. We really enjoyed the interaction with your team. And so I just want to wish you and your team and your family the best. Stay safe. And thank you very much for coming on Crime Science and sharing your experiences, your thought process, your

priorities, what you're doing and how much you and your team care about your people, your customers and what you're doing down there. And we're always here for you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And the same straight back at you. Please stay safe. Thank you.

Thanks so much. So that's, we want to thank Deb, Deb Perano, the head of LP, Loss Prevention for Bunnings, Australia, New Zealand, for joining us today. And thank you for joining us on another episode of Crime Science, the podcast. Please stay safe. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science podcast presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Bosch Security. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more Crime science episodes and valuable information at lpresearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast are those

of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the LF Prevention Research Council.