inst risks and protect their business assets. “Many of the problems Australia is only now starting to experience have already manifested themselves elsewhere on the planet and successful strategies to deal with them have been devised and implemented,” Retail Knowledge founder, Paul Bessant, told Inside Retail Weekly. “The purpose of our conference is to stimulate thinking and debate, to crystallise ideas around what constitutes best practice and to inspire those risk management and asset protection people present by exposing them to ideas new to them.” Bessant said that sophisticated retail markets demand that retailers constantly tailor offerings to match evolving consumers expectations. Being able to “get up close and personal” with retail brands and the goods and services they offer has culminated in precluding locked glass doors or having to key in a credit card pin. “Enhancing the consumer experience in this way consistently puts the onus on loss prevention teams to find ways to protect against the dishonest minority without interfering in that customer experience. And that is a challenge all across the developed world, not just for Australian retailers.” Omnichannel retail has opened up multifarious avenues for retailers to customise their offering, argued Bessant. However, with omnichannel retail comes omnichannel fraud. “Like the consumer experience, fraudsters no longer have to choose between online and offline crime. Delegates to Retail Fraud Melbourne can hear from Tony Sales – the man Rupert Murdoch himself nicknamed “Britain’s greatest fraudster” – on how online crime often starts with an offline security breach, and vice versa,” said Bessant. “Tony stole an estimated $100,000,000 from retailers over a six-year period, so he is a man who knows what he is talking about.” Loss prevention is no longer the domain of a singular department, with an interdepartmental approach now routinely employed to combat crime. “The LP team is still there, but they sit with the IT, operations, transport, warehouse, logistics, HR and finance departments when coming to conclusions about what threats they face and how best to deal with them,” said Bessant. The event will feature a presentation on how 200 of the world’s top retailers collaborate to uncover what threats they need to take pre-emptive action against from around the world. The results of Retail Knowledge’s first-ever Retail Fraud Survey of Australia, which identifies what Australian retailers are doing about crime and how they can deploy their resources most effectively benchmarked against other businesses, will be unveiled at the one-day event. Retail Fraud – Melbourne will be held on the February 4 at the Bayview Hotel. The event is free and open to all retailers.