Mat Schriner:

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you are in the world. We will get started in roughly 90 seconds at 1:01 PM eastern time. Please be patient with us as we prepare for our broadcast. Thank you.

Once again. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening. We will get started in roughly 45 seconds at one minute past the top of the hour. Please be patient with us as we allow the rest of the audience into the Zoom platform. Thank you.

All right, I have 1:01 PM eastern time. Thank you for joining us today for our LPF webinar titled Assessing Solution Providers To Best Fit Your Business. We would like to thank Live View Technologies for being a valued LPF partner and for sponsoring today's session. Live View Technologies has spent years developing the first remote full security solution. LVT camera units rapidly deploy whenever and wherever you need them. No need for wires, power or internet. So whether you need surveillance in a parking lot, on a lonely roadway, on a busy intersection, or at a concert or sporting event, LVT has a solution for you. My name is Mat Schriner and I'm the Senior Director of Operations for the Loss Prevention Foundation. I will be your host today.

Before we get into the presentation, we would like to cover a couple logistics items. First and foremost, the session is being recorded. Everyone will receive a link to the recording that registered for the webinar tomorrow. Everyone is muted. Audio is available through the webinar portal as well as the dial in number provided when you registered. And we do ask that any and all questions you have, you would enter them into the Q&A box, in the Zoom console, and we will attempt to get to as many of those questions at the very end of the presentation as possible to ensure we're able to get through all the content that has been prepared for you today. Joining me today, we have Mike Lamb, VP of Asset Protection and Safety with Kroger Companies. Good afternoon, Mike.

Mike Lamb:

Good afternoon

Mat Schriner:

And congratulations.

Mike Lamb:

Yep. Short retirement, Mat, but delighted to be back with the Kroger family and thanks for having me on today.

Mat Schriner:

Absolutely. Thank you, sir. Also, joining us today we have Tom Arigi, Divisional Vice President, and of Asset Protection and Safety with American Freight Furniture, Matress and Appliance. Good afternoon, Tom.

Tom Arigi:

Hey, good afternoon, Mat. Thanks for having me as well.

Mat Schriner:

It's a pleasure, sir. Thank you very much. And lastly, we have our moderator, David Studdert, Chief Revenue Officer with Live View Technologies. Good afternoon, David.

David Studdert:

Good afternoon, Mat, and thank you again.

Mat Schriner:

Absolutely. And at this time I will turn it over to David to cover our agenda.

David Studdert:

Again, Mat, thank you very much for the opportunity. Loss Prevention Foundation, you and Terry have been phenomenal to work with and we're grateful for the opportunity. Today I'm pretty excited we get to represent the solution provider side of this discussion. The agenda will go as follows. Starting with a discussion around troop partnerships. Tom and Mike have had this incredible career in the space and we're grateful for that and taking the opportunity to share with us their views on partnerships. And that goes through ecosystem, some of the essentials, the things that they look for in partnerships and how those partnerships become successful and recommendations. So a pretty concise agenda. I'm excited for the opportunity again to have these great gentlemen discuss the things that they've learned throughout their careers.

Mat Schriner:

Excellent. So to start things off, we do want to take a couple of quick audience polls. So if you're a retailer, we would love your response. On a scale of one to five overall, how healthy is the relationship your company has with your solution provider partners? And again, this is an overall, we know that they vary by solution provider relationship, so please take the next 20 seconds to respond and then we'll share those results and move on to our second portion of our polling of the audience.

Any takers on where we're going to land from our panelists?

Mike Lamb:

I don't have the benefit, Mat, of being able to see how the tally is shaping up between one and five, so that may be because-

Mat Schriner:

That makes it more fun for me.

Mike Lamb:

Yeah, you get to see what I can't, so it'll be a surprise for me and Tom.

‍Mat Schriner:

All right. So it looks like overall the vast majority of those that are on today's call would rate their overall relationships with their solution provider partners as good or excellent, whereas the latter we have fair or poor representing a smaller population, but a great opportunity for us as we move forward. And with this discussion because it's that important that we have solid relationships with our partners. And Mike, I know that you have a lot of experience there. Any commentary on the results of that poll?

Mike Lamb:

Well, candidly, pleasantly surprised, having worked in the industry for as long as I have to see that 75+% of those that took the poll rated as good or excellent is wonderful. It may allow for Tom and I to have a very short conversation today. Just kidding. Like anything we do, whether we're on the retail side or solution side, you can always improve and galvanize those relationships and hopefully what Tom and I will speak to today will be of some value to our listeners.

Mat Schriner:

Absolutely. And just as a secondary piece, we do want to engage our solution providers that are on as well. So on a scale of one to five, overall, how healthy is the relationship your company has with your retail clients? And that has been going for about 30 seconds, so we'll give it another 10 seconds. And then we'll also share those results. And very excited to see both the retail side as well as the solution provider side on our relationships as a cohesive industry.

So overall, again, good or excellent represents the vast majority of the respondents, so I'm very excited to see that and that is a good testament to the movement that we've been making as a profession. So thank you to all the retailers and the solution providers that were willing to give us that insight as we go into this presentation and this dialogue. And at this time, I will turn it over to David. David?

David Studdert:

Thank you Mat. And again, I forgot to really send out a big congratulations to both Tom and Mike. Big career changes for you guys over the last six months. Congratulations. As I looked at the poll from a solutions provider perspective, anytime we've had a chance to work with you fine gentlemen, it's been an excellent category, so we appreciate that.

Partnerships, it's something that we all strive for in every aspect of life, whether it's business, our family, our communities, that true partnership. So today, specific to forging great partnerships, I want to start off with a couple of questions that are near and dear to my heart. As someone who for years bang their head against the walls, trying to understand what that means to you. Maybe start off both Tom and Mike, tell us a little bit about what you feel like from a retailer and solution provider, what the roles are in that relationship? How do you begin to forge that great partnership?

Tom Arigi:

Look, Mike, if you're good, I'll take a run at this first. So to me, David, I think that's a great question. In fact, I wonder sometimes how often the two entities even think about that beyond either I provide or I consume a service. It's interesting that I think not only does a solution provided in retail have their own role to play for success, but they also have to understand that there's overlap and shared responsibilities for success.

And a few examples I can think of is first and foremost is each plays a role in each other's success, and or failure I guess. During the project, each has an equal role to either identify and solve problems when they come up. And we all know there's going to be problems during any deployment. So what comes to my mind as I think about that, and I bet Mike and I haven't talked about this, but I think he's going to know exactly and probably a lot of folks on this call are going to know exactly who I'm thinking about when I say I know an individual who made a whole career, a very, very successful career out of solving problems and getting after them really fast. That was his brand, that's what he was known for, and it made him a go-to solution provider.

And I suspect the opposite is true as well as you think about those individuals that might not be as good as he is, may not have that same level of success or maybe even repeat business. So each must help each other though. And I think the other thing is, I think about culture, David of the businesses. And it's important to understand each other's cultures, but I think from a solution provider standpoint, it's even more important to understand the retailer's culture. And understanding the company's culture and values ensures alignment. It also helps highlight the solutions that can support the vision, mission, and value of the organization they're looking to work with. And I know from personal experience, this can be a very, very powerful tool when you're in the process of innovating or seeking support from key leaders.

So that, and I think from a retailer perspective, probably first and foremost, treat your solution provider as a partner. David said it right. And in fact, what I would suggest and what I've tried to do is leverage your company's associate guidelines, meaning treat your solution partner like he's one of your own or she's one of your own internal associates or key stakeholders. It's a mistake I think when we don't work that way. When we think about, well look, I'm paying them so I don't have to treat them with that same level of respect. So if you want success in driving true partnerships, in my mind it's always treat those that you work with dignity and respect.

And the other thing that comes to mind is answer the phone or email. From a retailer's perspective, I know there's a lot going on and sometimes it's hard to do. And when I assess myself on this piece of advice, I didn't always hit the mark. But you have to have great communication, I think. And particularly when you're in the stages of innovating, developing and piloting, if the communication isn't strong there, that's not going to work. And if you don't have the time, my suggestion would be to the retailer, authorize somebody on your team that can make the call, not just make the meeting or make the email, but make the call. So for me, David, those are a few of the areas I think about when it comes to the role clarity between a solution provider and a retailer, and then the shared responsibilities as well.

David Studdert:

Thank you, Tom. Mike, anything to add to that? And that was well said.

Mike Lamb:

Yeah, Tom covered a lot and a lot of really great information. I have a unique perspective, Dave, as you know, having been in the business as a practitioner for so many years and then stepping away for nearly two years and setting on a number of formally, not anymore of course, but setting on advisory boards, working with solution providers. So it's given me a unique opportunity to look at it through both lenses, what's important to the retailer because I spent years and years doing that. And then what's important to the solution provider. And I'll probably touch on things that we may get to later in the deck, but I've always admired the solution provider that comes to me more anxious to listen than to speak, and understand what my true challenges are across the business that I'm running. And then from there assess their value proposition. And not just their business model, but their people model.

There's this so cliche, people will do more for you than they will in spite of you. And I truly believe these are as much personal relationships as they are business relationships. And I realized that when I stepped out of the business because there were organizations that I had worked with or around as consuming those products, and then I'm on the other side so to speak, and I'm trying to advocate for really both sides. As a practitioner having sat in that seat and then in an advisory role where I truly began to understand and respect just how hard solution providers work to try to get their value proposition in front of retailers. Tom hit on something I think is extraordinarily important. I think if you have a key role in a big job, you can't answer the phone every time it rings, but you can answer the phone.

And what I've found is, and it's just my style, I think, I have a rather insatiable appetite for technology. Not to replace people, but to compliment people. And so I keep an ear to the ground on what's happening from the solutions point of view. And then because there's no single silver bullet on this profitability, safety and strengthening, there's a lot of things that have to come together. And I know we are going to talk about ecosystem here in a moment.

And then the last thing I'll add is my mind, how much has the demand changed for the retailer and for the solution provider over the last two to two and a half years with the advent of COVID. And what we're seeing with social unrest and what we're seeing with just aggression in society. So there's never a better time for the two entities to continue to work together in a way that really adds value to both organizations. Because there's got to be a mutual benefit. It can't be one-sided. So just talk of the mind thoughts there.

David Studdert:

No, absolutely. It's interesting to hear you both talk. The list that you mentioned between understanding retailer's culture, mutually and understanding each other's culture, communicating, they're all the same things that work in all of our relationships, regardless if they're in business or personal. Mike, your comment about these are personal relationships. Having gone through your career and exited into retirement, that's your personal relationship. So I love hearing that. And risk of being a little redundant in this question, but again, representing the service providers on the call.

If you guys could just summarize, and I go back to the years and years and years that we tried to crack the nut of what are you looking for? How do we help better service your industry? How do we better understand your use cases? If you could just really concisely summarize the key attributes that resonate with you. Anytime you're looking at a solutions provider, what are those key things that pop out? Maybe one or two very quickly. And again, it may be redundant, but I love hearing it and I think other folks on the call might as well.

Tom Arigi:

I think for me, David, the two that I would come up with are innovation. And you think about today's rapidly changing environment, the solution providers have to, I think, avoid the word no. And those that can do it have a really big advantage. I used to work with an individual way back in the day that he challenged his team all the time to not be the no team, figure out an answer. He used to say no is a lazy answer.

And so there's a handful of solution providers I've had an opportunity to work with over the years that they live this all the time. They listen really, really intently because they like to innovate. They not only listen, but then they come up with things like, "Well, we'll go back to the lab and figure this out." And even if the original idea isn't possible, even if they take a run at it, you can't crack the code exactly. What they do come back with is, "Well, look, we weren't able to do this, but we can do this." And is that helpful? And that back and forth I think is really, really important to help drive innovation, which is critical within the space.

And the second one for me is reputation. And so what the great part about our slice of the retail businesses is how much collaboration takes place. I've always enjoyed that throughout my whole career. And as a solution provider, I think that can work for you or against you. And what I mean is if your reputation is one of an innovator and a collaborator or a problem solver, listener and that you're adding value. And I can go on and on and you get the point, if those are attributes that are attributed to you, I think success is almost certain. Now the opposite is true. If that doesn't describe you, then success is going to be harder to come by.

And for me, the word you, I've got to clarify that a little bit. For me, you equals you the individual, and then you the organization that you represent as well. And both the company and individual have to have this really, really strong brand that inspires confidence and builds trust. And when that all happens, it leads to really, really great things. So for me, the top two David, are innovation and reputation.

David Studdert:

Note to self, never tell Tom no. Okay. Mike, anything to add to that?

Mike Lamb:

Yeah, just a couple thoughts. One, believe it or not, as a retailer, I have admiration for professional persistence on behalf of a solution provider because if you're the number one or number two guy or gal in your organization running AP and you got a 1000 balls in the air, and it's fairly easy to dismiss and say, "Well, I'll call Bill or Susan back later. They reached out once and I got other priorities right now." So to be able to have an organization that believes in themselves enough and in their product enough that they professionally provide a level of persistence such that it forces me into a yes or no, I have an admiration for that. And that may sound a bit silly, but that's how I feel. Because You don't know the organization and you don't know its people until you get to know the organization and its people. So what sustains and grows that relationship is do they have the makeup and the cultural fit that matches with your organization and where you want to take your respective department.

I think credibility is important, but everybody at some point has to establish it. I don't mind taking a calculated risk on perhaps that solution provider that maybe a lot of people hadn't thought about, or maybe that does not have a long enough track record that you could move with certainty that there's a ton of credibility in terms of the reliability of the product, the effectiveness of the product. I used to work for an organization where, and I loved the fact that she allowed me to do this, this lady would say, "Mike, you can try just about anything as long as it's legal in three stores, because you can't break the company in three stores." And therefore we took some risks.

I think one of them was with a company called Live View Technologies years ago when I was over there with the boys in blue. And so there's a starting point, there's a sustained point, and if it's done right, there's not an end point. And so for me, those are the things that stand out.

‍David Studdert:

Thank you, Mike.

Mike Lamb:

So I answered it by saying what's the responsibility of retailer and then what's the responsibility of the solution provider?

David Studdert:

Yeah, and I appreciate that. You'd mentioned that your retail partners and associates have 1000 balls in the air, which is a great segue into the ecosystem and really what that looks like. Realizing that you deal with 1000 different groups, solutions providers and technologies and innovations. Ecosystem, what does that mean to you two? Why is it important? How do we get better at managing this ecosystem? I'd love to talk about that for a minute. Either one.

Mike Lamb:

I'll jump on that one first. I'm going to jump on that one first, Dave, because this is a hot button for me. It was a hot button just before I stepped out of retail, but it got put to the wayside when this little thing called COVID hit and we all dropped what we were doing to rush to do what had to be done for our businesses. But to me, I don't know, and I'm not suggesting there's not, but I'm not aware of a retailer that's really, Kroger included by the way. And that's my fault because I've been here a long time. I was gone for the long hour back. But really, how do you stand up, initially assess all your solution providers that service your respective company, and look at ways in which by connecting the dots, it becomes more of a force multiplier? Both for the value of the solution provider and the return on that investment as it relates to the retailer.

So you look at technologies, and I won't mention companies, but like face matching. And then you look at technologies where you're locking down carts at the door. If you think about the grocery world. And so you got rich data that you're ingesting. But are those two systems talking to one another? And then you say, "Well, wait a minute, we also deploy guards in our business." So rather than do the arbitrary, I'm going to staff at 11 AM to eight PM because my clam feels like that just is the right way to do it. You've got intelligent data that helps direct resources there.

I just think, and to me this is a coin, one of my phrases, this is an evolution, not a revolution. I don't think you flip the switch and you take an organization like the one that I'm grateful to be employed by and you're there overnight. But there's got to be more dialogue around I can think of four or five key solution providers for Kroger that how do you bring them together in such a way that everybody benefits? Kroger needs to benefit an organization investing in these companies, but each one of those companies, solution providers need to benefit as well.

So there's a lot of work for us to do here at Kroger around that. So this is the pot calling the kettle black, if you will. But I believe this ecosystem thing is something that we talked about. We've kicked the can on it a bit, at least in my experiences where I've been. And I think it's really time to start connecting those dots. I think it can be transformational for our industry.

David Studdert:

Thank you, Mike.

Tom Arigi:

David, look, obviously Mike and I aren't going to differ too much on this since I've worked with him twice in my career and have learned from him. But look, of all the things we're likely to talk about today, I think this is probably the most important discussion piece. And as an industry, whether you're on the solution provider side of the retail side, we've got to get this figured out. And the best way for me to think about this, because I get asked this quite a bit. And I've been trying to think of a way that makes sense for people that maybe not even understand what AP technology roadmaps even look like. And as I've thought about this, the best way for me to illustrate this is maybe to take us back a little bit in time before smartphones existed.

And heck, we probably, David have folks on a call that don't even remember when that time took place. But the reality is it wasn't all that long ago. And so back when I started in 1983, catching shoplifters at Sears, when I had to make a phone call, I had to be on a landline or if I was in the mall, I had to use a pay phone. And cell phones, that was a game changer for me. I was an early adapter. I had that phone, some might remember how to call that you had a wire into your car. And it was a cool thing while you're in a car, you could make a phone call. But if you weren't in your car you couldn't. And then not too long after that, there's some more innovation that took place. And I bought a Motorola handheld phone, and that thing was nicknamed a brick. And it was nicknamed that for a reason, it was every bit as big of a brick and it was as heavy as a brick as well.

And if you think about it, texting wasn't even a thing then. This was just all about how do you make a phone call easier? And then the BlackBerry came out. And man, I can remember when that BlackBerry came out, I couldn't wait to get one. That was from 2005 to 2009, I think Blackberry dominated the market. And for good reason because they started thinking about the same things we're talking about, but just on one device, which is how do you make a phone call, maybe take a picture, access some game? And it was pretty basic back in the start of it, but it was a game changer. And so much so it had a nickname called, people called it a CrackBerry because people were so addicted to it.

This in my mind, is an example of how this ecosystem around communication started to form. And to me, the ultimate little mini ecosystem is this iPhone right here. Just think if Apple would've said, "Well, you know what? Blackberries are pretty good. Let's just leave that alone." And never developed an iPhone. And if you take that a few steps further, what if the people that were developing apps said, "I don't want to participate in the app store. I'm just going to do my own thing over here, be siloed." Or the other end of that is what if Apple didn't let those independent developers in? And to me, these are really good examples of what we're trying to figure out here between the retailing business and the solution provider business is how do you work that together?

And I think an important lesson here in history is it was part of Blackberry's demise really because they were really late to the app development, the outside app development, and it gave Google and Apple a big leak that they could never recover from. So I say all that to say when I think about an AP ecosystem, it's similar to how your smartphone works today. All these functions working together seamlessly provides a great outcome, provides a great experience. In fact, the phone is just a small part of Apple's bigger ecosystem. And I remember when the iPad first came out and I was sitting in an airport, and a two-year-old and a three-year-old were fighting over. And this two-year-old got a hold of it and could instinctively navigate that iPad. And man, that's gold right there. There's no training that went into this two-year-old's thought process. She could just figure out how to get to what you wanted to.

So for me, I guess at the end of a very long story, for me, the key questions for the retailers participating today is, will your technology roadmap look and work more like a cell phone or a smartphone? And then for the solution providers, do you want to get out on the ground floor of this what might called an evolution, not a revolution, or be late to the party like Blackberry? So this is how I've thought about it and hopefully a decent way to illustrate when I think about how an AP ecosystem should be designed to work, maybe just look at your smartphone and go, "Man, if we could do that, we're doing pretty good."

David Studdert:

Tom, I love this. I wish we had our product team in here and our innovation team. I'm going to require that they all go back and hear this. As we look at how we innovate, are we doing it collaboratively or are we making your jobs easier by taking the 1000 balls in the air and making them work better, faster, stronger together in that ecosystem? You'd also mentioned that this is the meat of this webinar. This is the thing that hopefully when we all walk away here in 20 minutes, this is stuff we're thinking about.

Question from the solutions provider side. What can we do to do better? Is there any one thing today that the solutions providers in the calls and the retail partners on the calls can go back and say, "Hey, this is one thing that you guys should be doing," to help push that, not the revolution, but the evolution into the ecosystem? Is there one thing we can be doing different or doing better?

Mike Lamb:

I have two comments based on what Tom shared. One, he's a real old man. He's talking Blackberries and HT 90s. He is older than I am, I think. Well, maybe not. But you-

David Studdert:

He could be on a green screen.

Mike Lamb:

My shot at humor, clearly I failed largely. To me, Dave, the question around, it's not something, you wave a wand and suddenly you've got six or eight or five or 10 or whatever the number of solution providers in your organization working in total harmony. But as the old saying goes, every journey begins with the first step. My intention at Kroger is get everybody in the room and say, "Okay, let's brainstorm." Hopefully we got smarter people than me in this room. How do we make this work? And because I think one of the questions, Mat, maybe Mat threw it up, is what are some of the larger challenges retailers face in trying to establish this ecosystem?

I can tell you here at Kroger, my supervisor's very excited about the idea. And I'm sure there's some solution providers that are equally excited. There may be others that are a little bit more hesitant because, okay, what does this mean? Am I going to be revealing intellectual property? Am I going to be doing things that go against the grain of our own culture as a solution provider? But I think all those things can be vetted, all those things can be worked through.

And on the system side, how do you make things talk? I have a tendency to oversimplify things sometimes that can be a lot more complicated than I think they are. But I know one thing, you never get to the bottom unless you start. If you don't start diving from the surface, you never get to the bottom. And I would just say don't overthink the how. Just overthink the what. And to me the what is connecting these dots.

David Studdert:

Thank you, Mike. Great advice moving forward. As we look to not only broaden that ecosystem but work more collaboratively inside of it. There's five partnership essentials that we've got here. And Mike, back to comment you made earlier about originally working with us when you were with the boys in blue. You took a risk on a fairly new idea. I'm curious, as you look at innovative solutions and new solution partners, what calculated risk really are you willing to take. As you seek those and you try to implement those, what's the risk?

Mike Lamb:

Well, here's an old cliche. A lambism. Taking no risk is a greater risk than taking a risk. So I would say that one, don't create a problem for your company. I can tell you at Walmart, just like all other retailers in America that have big parking lots, we had issues. We had crime, we had crimes against person, crimes against property. And we were meeting with the tech team and we were talking cameras and how do we mitigate against this issue? How can we make it a more difficult mark? Pardon the target as we say.

And it was, okay, we'll run cameras. Well, then we got to plow through the parking lot with cables and we got to do this and we got to do that. And a company like yourself that was doing business in other space, you reached out. You reached out, and we said, "You know what? This looks like it makes a lot of sense." And so that was the genesis of what has since become a commonplace. Your technology's commonplace in the industry. And not everything you're going to do is going to work. You have to understand going in that I'm going to throw four things against the wall, and if one sticks and it adds value, it was worth throwing all four.

You have to be a little risk averse and say, or not so risk averse and say, "We're going to try this, whatever this may be." And then like anything you measure. What's the impact? And Dave, having worked with me as a practitioner for years, I didn't sell your product based on, "Hey, organization, trust me, it works." It was data. And so as you think about some of these partnership essentials, one, you got to be able to take a little risk. And I don't mind being front edge instead of leading edge sometimes. Not always best to be the first guy out front, but it's not always the best to be the second person out front. So to me, I've always had an element of some risk taking, hopefully calculated risk, and understanding that the potential for that reward is much, much larger than the risk itself.

David Studdert:

And looking at some of your past deployments, is there a magic equation? I'm sure you guys have deployed stuff in the past where you might've wished you hadn't. Is there one successful piece of, "Hey, this helped me in making these decisions?" I know there's the question of ROI and how do we fund, and there's a lot of moving parts in this. Is there one thing that's worked over both of your long careers, Tom?

‍Tom Arigi:

Yeah, I would say the importance of planning. And so you were talking about Mike and you were talking about risk. And retailers take risk every day. They open up their doors for business. There's risk calculated with that. So it should be a skillset that we all have to understand what those risks might be. And to turn that calculated risk, make it successful, I think if you've just got to have a great business plan. If you've got a solution that you think you might work, you're not going to deploy that instantly across your whole enterprise, at least I don't think you would.

What's worked for me is this innovate, test and learn, run a pilot, run some really good data to understand what that IRR or ROI, depending on what you use is going to be. And I think if you do that, the thing about retail is you want to move with urgency, but you don't want to move so fast that you get so far ahead of yourself that now you're in a position of, well, we spent a lot of money, we got nothing out of it. So to me, it's that proper planning piece.

Mike Lamb:

I would just add to that, David, one of the approaches that we've taken in the last couple of organizations I've worked for is you start out with a proof of technology. Does the technology itself stand up to the expectations? And then you measure that against whatever criteria makes sense for the business, and should make sense for the business. And then you migrate from proof of technology to proof of concept. We've done that here at Kroger with some of the point of sale technology that we've introduced. So you don't go in and go, "Hey, I'm going to land this in 2500 stores." You go in and say, "I'm going to do a proof of technology in three stores or one store. I'm going to do a proof of concept in 20, and then from there, I'll move to rollout." The rollout could be a portion of your chain. It could be the entire chain based on the business and the business needs and where that value lies.

And then the other thing that's critically important in my mind, and hopefully Tom would agree with me here, is how can the technology that you're standing out from a safety, security, asset protection, loss prevention perspective compliment the business in other ways? How can it compliment the customer experience in terms of fast, friendly, or even clean as some of the monitors and organizations are today? How can it improve the customer experience by improving on-shelf availability? So to the extent you've got a technology that you can market to your organization, because we're all salespeople. I don't care who you are on this call. You're a salesperson. David, you're selling your product and I'm selling my product to the executive leadership here to say we need to make this investment. And to the extent that you can do that in areas that touch more than just your own function, I think you've got two legs up.

And I'll give you case in point. So it's one thing to just mouth off something. I'll give you a great case in point. We're using a point of sale exception technology at Kroger today that identifies sweeping. Skip scanning. And what we found was it also massively improved the productivity of our skull attendants, because we weren't running them ragged with the old technology that was obsolete and dated. And we weren't desensitizing them to the notion of, let me just get the customer through the line. Assuming it's Kroger's issue, not the customer's. Well, what this technology did, it not only revealed we had massive loss contributing to shrink, we had loss of sales because if you're not ringing it up, you're losing money. And then we found that we had efficiency in that labor force because they believed in it.

And secondarily, we were not running them ragged. So when they had to go to a register to assist a customer, they did it in the spirit of service, but they knew there was a reason to be there. And when you start selling those points to your business on, "Hey, this is not just Lamb being selfish on shrink," which I get paid to be selfish on shrink, but I'm complimenting the business in other ways, that's where you start winning big in my mind. And that's where you can get it through these various capital committees, particularly in the larger organizations where you're just one among many standing in line looking for money. It's like, I need money to invest in my business. So you better have a very compelling argument that it's one data-driven. Two, it can or has the ability to touch other areas of the business beyond just your asset protection function.

David Studdert:

Thank you, Mike. It's interesting. As a solutions provider, I sit here and I think how do we do better at understanding what those data sets are? A lot of times as solutions providers, we don't have clear optics on what the ROI looks like at the retail side. What are those metrics of success? Do you have any advice for solutions provider, even the retailers. Those data points, they not only help us understand what's working, what's not, but they help drive our innovation and our product roadmap. Any advice to solutions providers on how we better navigate understanding what the success metrics look like at the store level? Understanding that some of them may be confidential, but it does help the solutions providers. Is there any advice you can give us on how we do a better job of understanding what that ecosystem looks like?

Tom Arigi:

Well, look, from my standpoint, David, it's the first thing on if we were going to put a strategy together that includes how do you make this work? The very first thing has to be what's the success criteria? What does it look like? And setting those metrics. And I would think if we're starting to establish a partnership, we would also be past the NDA piece where we could share data that makes sense to ensure that this partnership's going to work right. So for me, it's right at the beginning of the project. What are we looking to accomplish? Mike did a great job of, it's very clear understanding what the role was of what we're trying to accomplish at self-checkout. Without those key metrics or understanding it has a potential for the project to go sideways.

David Studdert:

Thank you, Tom. Gentlemen, it's been an honor. I think Mat's got a whole slew of additional questions. Again, congratulations to you both for what you do in the space, keeping us safe every day. I think I can speak for all the solutions providers on the phone. This is a space that we love to be in because we're making our community safer. We mentioned this often here at Live View. My mom, she's 74 years old, she shops at all your stores. I take this stuff really serious because it's my mom. This is back to the personal relationships. So thank you. We know your jobs aren't easy. All of our retail partners out there. 1000 balls in the air. We realize it's hard work, but it's worthy work and it needs to be done. So thanks to both of you. Mat, I think you've got a bunch of additional questions for us maybe?

Mat Schriner:

Yeah, absolutely. And great job to both of you. Love the dialogue on just how much change has happened within the industry to look at our partners as just that. A true business partner. An extension of our internal teams to really achieve those internal goals and those key performance indicators that all of our organizations have. So we do have some questions coming in. We do have some that were sent in prior, but how do you bring, so you guys just talked about ROI, so how do you bring other stakeholders from within your organization together to build out the success criteria prior to a proof of technology or proof of concept to build a true holistic business model of KPIs to take to the business for those capital projects and the rollouts, as Mike was mentioning?

Tom Arigi:

Well, look, from my standpoint, it's exactly what Mike was talking about is early on when your problem solving, communication amongst the key stakeholders within the retail organization is critical. And at my previous employer, we were part of the retail operations team, which was great because we started to understand exactly what they were working on, they understood what we were working on, and many times there was a lot of synergies that could take place. I would say the most important thing is communication, making sure that your organization is talking to the rest of the key stakeholders among the organization so that you can not only share potential, the burden of the costs for the deployment, but more importantly share the ROI and enhance the ROI.

And my experience has been most decision-makers, most capital committees love it when it's not just solely an AP solution that it has other benefits, whether they're, like Mike was talking about, whether that's a safety issue, whether that's a sales issue, whether that's an in-stock, the ripple effect when you start really thinking about it is pretty amazing when you start to think about all the impacts these technologies can have. So that'd be my thought on that question, Mike.

Mike Lamb:

Yeah. One of the first things I did when I got to Kroger in 2017 was assess the business, do this SWOT analysis. And one of the things that I determined, and the company was right there with me, they might've did, duh when I said it was, you know what, we're not leveraging technology like we need to in this space. And so we immediately began to set up bi-weekly standing touch bases with the Kroger network team. And we'd brainstorm. We'd blue sky. And they talk about what was in the pipeline from a technology point of view that was set up by other aspects of the business. And we would share things that we felt were important, that we needed to land or at least assess or critique. And that was a genesis of reaching out to a lot of solution providers to say, "Look, we have a problem and our business is to seek solutions. And by definition, you're a solution provider, so help us with this."

And then that Kroger network team helped us cross-functionally from a data security point of view, from a cloud point of view, from a network point of view, so that we were able in most circumstances to move in lockstep. The other thing I would say is you got to have a degree of patience. Anything worth having generally takes a little while to get done. I have found in life, both and otherwise. And so you can't walk away on the first no. I won't get into ticklers, but we had with another company, or maybe this one, I'm not sure, we were stonewalled. Where it was like, "Nah, we're not going to do it." And I think as an AP leader, you don't walk away on the first no.

Now, if it's a resounding no to the top of the organization, then you've got to figure out, okay, it's time to walk away, but never walk away on the first no. If you're not doing it today as a retailer, grab that network team, that innovations team and say, "Look, let's get together on this." I can tell you we have a great relationship. In fact, today is my officially first day in the office, second day on the job, and I've already got a no from a guy that runs technology saying, "I'm so glad you're back. I'm so looking forward to us connecting again." And you got to work on those relationships. I think the theme of everything we've said, David, is more around collaboration and partnership and trust. And that can be internal or external, and it's no less important on either side.

Mat Schriner:

Yeah. And it takes time to build that trust. So it takes a of time to build that trust in that community with those stakeholders internally and externally with our solution provider partners, it only takes a moment to come crashing down. So be mindful of that as you have your discussions, as you're approaching things, don't make it personal. Make it about the goals and the objectives. So Mike, you said something in your commentary, and I do want to ask this question. So do you both require your solution providers to work within an open API framework for their solutions, so that you're preventing any pushback down the road in the event that you signed a vendor or a solution provider for working with other providers to build a better solution cohesively?

Tom Arigi:

Yeah, so I'll take a run at that one. Requires a strong word. I think an open API makes life a little bit easier. And certainly at my previous employer, we were working on how to make that comfortable. So to me, an open API is probably an enabler. It probably moves things along faster. But if there's a solution provider out there that has a significant concern, those are all things that have to be talked about. And again, in the spirit of true partnership, if that's a game stopper, then we just got to make a decision around either how to make that work or maybe move along. I'm not quite sure. It would be very situational, I would think.

‍Mike Lamb:

Yeah, I agree. I don't want to change subjects, but it looks like Carlos Perez had a question. What's the most important factor when determining a provider for a problem? There's probably a number of those, but the first thing that would come to my mind is can they meet your demands for today? Meaning what's the expect, and today's probably for me, zero to 12 months. And then are they scalable? And do they have the ability to meet your demands or can they grow to meet your demands such that you don't find yourself being undersourced with technology, that they can't move fast enough to meet the expectations of your company. And I know there's probably retailers on that have far fewer stores in Kroger. There may be some on that have more, but scalability to me is important. And are they willing to make the same investment internally in themselves as they are expecting you to invest in them? And I think clarity around that is certainly important.

Mat Schriner:

Yeah, absolutely. I know in my former days as an LP operations manager for a major retailer, one of my favorite things was just talking to our solution providers, research and development teams on future capabilities and things that we were considering and thinking about bringing on board or looking for in the space to address some of our major challenges. So the last 24 months have shown us that there's value in assessing calculated value, but also emotional value for organizations and their brand. How important is it for a brand today to respond as part of a community rather than a corporation? And how do our solution provider partners play into that strategic vision for our organizations?

Tom Arigi:

Look, I think that's critically important. It's a great question. When you think about what's going on in retail today, Tops just a few weeks ago, if you don't have a connection to the community, I think that's a big miss. And what I love about what David was talking about before, I've heard him say it before, and I know he truly, truly believes it. Any one of our family members could be in any one of our stores, anybody on this call, any retailer on this store at any time. And so there are emotional aspects to ROI. You can't put your thumbprint on it. You can't go to a capital committee and say, "My customers are just going to feel better." There has to be some data that goes with that. But it's okay to say it in my mind. It's okay to talk about, gee, I was in a store and this customer parked right under a Live View tower, and we asked her why. She said, "Because I know my car's going to be safe. And if somebody messes with it, I know you'll know who it is."

So there's a value in that, and customers and associates have to feel safe to show up to work or to show up to shop. And so understanding that emotional value, being able to articulate what your associates and what your customers are feeling, especially in today's environment, is critically important. So I wouldn't discount the pure emotional piece of the projects that you're working on. If they're tied to things like that, I'd absolutely include them. Your accountants might not put much weight on it, but I know your retail operations folks and folks running stores will, and that means a lot. So that's what my thoughts are on that question.

‍Mike Lamb:

Mat, I would add to Tom's comments, and this is obviously a statement of the obvious, but this notion of life safety and customer and associate safety for retailers has in many ways superseded one of the key priorities for asset protection. Any organization can get over a bad quarter shrink or a bad store shrink, or even a not so great shrink year, but when someone walks into a retail shop and opens fire and starts killing human beings, then it can bring a company to its needs emotionally and otherwise. I think the importance of solution providers to continue to develop technologies that help us mitigate and reduce the risks associated with life safety are going to increasingly become more and more important. And if I'm in a solution provider space, I'm not only talking shrink management, I'm talking brand management because these things are devastating.

And there's a lot of companies and a lot of C-suites and boardrooms, I'm sure that everyone on the retail side know and understand that are taking place today around how can we do more? What can we do to be a better corporate citizen and let our customers feel as though they can come and go and shop in our box without fear of some harm being brought to them. I think that's emerging as one of the most significant challenges we have. And so for the solution provider community and for the retail community, sadly that's the state we've moved to. I'm an old guy. 20 years ago, they even never heard of an active shooter event, or if you did, it was back page news. It was so rare. Today we're just all too common. And the numbers we're seeing are just staggering. And I look at some of the emerging technologies and I know there's a fit where perhaps in the past privacy issues or other issues of when we held those things back, I think life safety takes precedence.

And that's the other thing that we probably didn't go as deep in as we needed to. Don't think for a second that if there's a technology that I think benefits life safety, that I'm not reaching out to our head of human resources and other key functional departments to say, "We can't afford not to have those," much less can we afford to have it? And really be that advocate. If there's one thing I want to do now in the second twilight of this chapter of my career is what do we do to provide a safer environment for our customers and our associates? Because it's become lethal out there, hasn't it? And obviously schools are our target, we know that. And so are retail shops. Just think about the poor folks at Tops and what they went through. So I think from a solution provider perspective, boy, I'd be digging in on that space.

Mat Schriner:

Yeah. And all the more reason we need to have those types of call-outs and those types of customer feedback. The testimonials from customers that have those solutions that do impact life safety do prevent those types of incidents from happening on our property are very important to take to the leadership team, the executive leadership team for consideration, for those proof of technologies, for those proof of concepts and for those rollouts. The next question's broad, but how should organizations keep track of third-party solutions and socialize them internally to ensure verticals are not duplicating efforts, and finding similar solutions only for their specific business segment?

Mike Lamb:

Well, I can give you an answer to how we solve for that at Kroger is we meet with the network team routinely. And we meet with the operational team routinely, and they in fact, stand up technologies oftentimes that have an ancillary benefit to our business. So does duplicity occur? Certainly it does. And you want to make sure you're not doubling down on the technology, you're leveraging the technology that makes the best sense for the business. But I think it goes back to what we talked about from the onset, and that's collaboration and communication internally with your cross-functional partners.

Mat Schriner:

Yeah, absolutely. And even the teams that are sourcing bids for those solutions that an organization are going after, making sure that they're keeping tabs not only on the solutions they're seeking, but the solutions that have already been inked to paper on what's coming through the pipeline. So we do have a couple of announcements. I want to thank all of our panelists as well as David for moderating today, and Live View Technologies for being the sponsor of today's session. I think this was truly a value add for our profession and seeing just the need for that ongoing collaboration and innovation in our space to keep people safe, to help our organizations maintain profitability and sustainability long-term.

So Live View Technologies has sponsored a 20% discount code off of LPF memberships and our certification courses. If you are looking to become LP qualified or LP certified, you can use partnership as your promo code now through June 15th to save 20% off of either a membership and or your coursework. We will be awarding five LP certification course scholarships courtesy of Live View Technologies following today's webinar. The announcement will come out at the post webinar email that you'll receive tomorrow, so be on the lookout for that as you might be one of the lucky winners.

As always, thank you for attending today. We look forward to seeing many of you at NRF Protect in a couple of weeks. If you are going to be there, be sure to stop by Booth 1059 to see Live View Technologies and see their solutions in person as well as Booth 8009 to visit the Loss Prevention Foundation. Thank you for all you do. Stay safe and have a great week. Take care.

Mike Lamb:

Thanks all. See you.