Abacus
and Sonny’s Tackle Shrink
Aloha
Video Surveillance Provides New Views of POS
Shrink is a 27 billion dollar retail headache that is
getting worse. With every dollar recovered from shrink, the
bottom line receives it as profit. Video surveillance attacks
shrink and improves customer service by offering a combination
of innovative solutions that reduce shrink and improve customer
service—all in one product.
Curtis Ayrey will tell you that security alone is not enough: to
be effective, it has to be the right kind of security. A Sonny’s
franchi see with five locations, Ayrey’s business has been
growing rapidly over the past five years and as he has continued
to expand, he has learned a lot of lessons about the “wrong”
kind of security.
According to Ayrey, “Analog video systems are difficult and
cumbersome to use. They simply aren’t effective. And the number
one issue is that the security system has to be connected with
the point of sale system to be able to easily measure
profitability and specific incidents of loss.”
Rich Peterson, President of Abacus Business Solutions,
agrees. “Loss prevention is all about pinpointing areas where a
business is most vulnerable and being able to organize visual
data to do searches for specific point of sale activities.” As a
world leading reseller of the Aloha Point of Sale system, Abacus
has a long history of solving the challenges in the hospitality
industry. “We’ve evolved with point of sale,” says Peterson. “
At abacus, we manage technology for our customers.”
Keeping an Eye on Sales While…
Ayrey found what he was looking for in Aloha: a
flexible video surveillance technology that ties together
security and the Aloha point of sale system. “We try to provide
an environment where we take temptation away from people and
we’re able to do that more easily with Aloha.”
Aloha offers an integrated POS and video solution that
joins digital recording with the capturing and data mining of
POS transactions. The search tool combines fast and easy search
of archived video with the POS operation; each transaction and
the accompanying video appear on the same screen. Using up to 36
cameras, data can be scrutinized on up to 60 different items,
such as date, time, server, transaction type and amount.
Suspicious transactions can be identified for alerts. “For
example, we can easily go back and see transactions that may
have been conducted improperly,” explains Ayrey. “With Aloha, we
can drill down into very specific data, such as voids, the over
use of discount keys, or under-ringing.”
…Keeping Customers Happy
Reducing shrinkage is not the only benefit of video
surveillance. According to Ayrey, the right security system also
enables managers to better understand what’s happening in their
specific stores so that problem areas can be easily identified
and rectified.
“Sonny’s has standards that our stores must meet in order to
ensure the highest levels of customer satisfaction,” states
Ayrey. He explains that the security system enables managers to
better meet these standards by allowing them to easily monitor
everything from the quality of their food to the cleanliness of
their employee uniforms.
True Web-based Platform
Aloha is ideal for franchise operators like Ayrey
because he can monitor numerous locations in real-time from any
Internet connection, a critical feature of the system.
Traditionally, interfacing POS data with video has been
accomplished via serial communication. This requires third party
boxes and cumbersome cabling from each terminal and only
provides text insertion. Aloha offers true Web-based
surveillance. “It’s not just about loss prevention, although
that is important,” states Ayrey. “For example, you can easily
view your stores at a specific time to see what the retail
environment looks like.”
Space Saver
Aloha video surveillance saves customers in other ways
as well: the system can easily store 30 days of video and
transactions on the Aloha server itself. This means that
additional computers and peripherals aren’t necessary. “Go into
any restaurant and look at the office,” explains Peterson.
“Every inch is used. And no one wants to take away a table to
expand the store’s office.”
For Safety’s Sake Too
As importantly, Aloha gives both employees and managers
a greater sense of safety. Non-POS cameras can record
continuously or detect specific video motion events: whether
monitoring a back door, parking lot, or dining room, instances
of theft, harassment or other potentially harmful activities can
be more easily mitigated and hopefully avoided. And data is
protected through proprietary encoding, ensuring that it meets
stringent court requirements during any necessary investigative
proceedings.
Payback — It’s All Dollars and Sense
“Loss prevention, by it’s very nature, is at best an
educated guess,” states Ayrey. “However, with Aloha, we estimate
that the payback will probably occur within a year. When you
look at what this means in terms of both cost savings and the
potential recovery of lost sales, you can see why this kind of
system is key.”
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