Exceptional Cooperation

Information technology professionals communicating via the Internet may seem rather ordinary. But when they're discussing exception-based reporting systems and improving loss prevention efforts, that's fairly extraordinary. Throw in a conference call the second Wednesday of every month and you've really got something.

Retail end-users calling themselves the EBRgroup meet regularly to share ideas and discuss best practices, using www.ebrgroup.net as both a forum and a recruitment tool for others who deal with exception-based reporting or related LP systems. On June 10, the scheduled topic is "Mapping EBR — Understanding How Your POS Integrates with EBR." The July 8 conference call subject will be "Understanding Exception Strategies: Cause and Effect."

Heading the effort are Shannon K. Stilwell, manager of exception reporting and organized retail crime for Kohl's Department Stores, and Art Silva, director of loss prevention for AnnTaylor. A third member of the board is Bill Warrick, who would rather not divulge the name of the specialty retailer that employs him.

The nexus of the group began forming seven or eight years ago at a user conference, Stilwell recalls. She and Warrick were discussing various topics that had been raised, but not fully addressed, in one of the sessions when another attendee said, "‘You guys are doing more work out of the session than in the session — you should meet more often.' That started me and others to think about having a group of just end-users."

Things really started to gel in 2007 when Stilwell and Silva made a presentation at the NRF Loss Prevention Conference & EXPO. Stilwell had secured the URL for a website "with the idea of having a way that just end-users could communicate," she says. "Others said, ‘Let's build on this.'"

Silva recalls discussing "the need for a way for LP systems people to talk about issues." Seeking a way to extend the networking, "we put together our contacts and shared them with others, who then added their contacts. We kept mentioning the group at various conferences and it went from there."

Today, the EBRgroup consists of about 80 members representing more than 50 companies that run the gamut from big-box mass merchants and specialty stores to drug stores, supermarkets and chain restaurants. There are few formal rules, but a lot of informal protocols.

For example, subject matter and discussion topics are kept vendor-neutral in order to address the concepts involved in exception-based reporting as an LP tool and as the basis for improving productivity and the bottom line throughout the operation.

"We try to be really more about the thought process rather than ‘How do you write a piece of code?'" Silva says.

On average, 18 to 25 members take part in the monthly conference calls.

EBR "is growing outside its original scope," Stilwell says. "It used to be just about finding the bad guys at POS. Now it's about finding the shrinkage in my building — receipt information, returns, receiving. All that data is there for a large picture of the business."