Revolutionize Your Security Approach

Julie Lawson:

My hair is having a fun day today. All right. I'm seeing people start to pop in from our participants that are viewing today's webinar, I'm going to pop into the chat. I love it when everyone kind of participates in the chat and kind of says where you're from, who you're with, all that kind of fun stuff going along. So I'm going to go ahead and kick off the chat so everyone can find it. Michael, are you based out of Utah as well?

‍Michael Hanlon:

Boston, mass.

Julie Lawson:

Boston. All right. So you just happen to be out there for their offices because I love that setting that they have there, so very cool.

Michael Hanlon:

Yeah, no, it was good timing.

Julie Lawson:

All right, we've got lots of folks that have started to join us early. We'll get kicked off right at 1 0 1 Eastern 1201 Central, so feel free to find that chat, pop in your name, who you're working with, where are you based out of? I love networking, so feel free to pop your information in there. We've got a couple of Californias out there already. Brian Whereabout in the Dallas area. We all say Dallas, but super specific. I'm in Whiteley Eating Prairie. I like that. It sounds like it should be a Hallmark movie. Before we got about three more minutes before we get this kicked off, thank you so much to everybody who's joining us early. Punctuality is amazing. Duncanville, yes. See, we all say Dallas, but it's like there's so many areas of Dallas. Duncanville is a nice area. I'm just on the other side of the metroplex. I saw somebody else was in Dallas area too. Daniel, where in Dallas are you? Waxahatchee? Been there many times. Many times. I have a good bakery down there. Networking at its finest. Brian's very familiar with Waxahatchee. All right, we got about one more minute and then we'll go ahead and kick this off. Just letting everybody hop from one meeting to the next Vegas. Funny enough, I've never been to Vegas, close to getting started. All right. It is 1201 Central 1 0 1 Eastern. We're going to go ahead and kick this off. My name is Julie Lawson. I'm the director of operations and partnerships over here at the Loss Prevention Foundation, and it's my pleasure to be your host today. Today's session is the Delicate Science of Larry and Guards and Technology. Today's session is sponsored by LiveView Technologies. LVT is a leader in life safety and security and a premier developer and manufacturer of mobile, solar powered and cellular connected surveillance solutions and software. Headquartered in American Fork, Utah. LVTs Enterprise Software as a service solution is used by retailers, critical infrastructure and utilities, construction projects, warehouse and distribution centers and more. L VT is proud to be made in the USA and manufactured in Utah. For more information, visit www.lvt.com. Now, before I actually kick over into today's session and introduce today's speakers, I need to go over a couple of logistical items.

So first, today's session is being recorded, so if you need to step away from the computer, no problem. All you have to do is revisit the original registration link and you can watch this on demand. Same thing. If you want to share it with somebody, just send them that original registration link and they'll be able to go sign up and watch it at any point. Also, if you have any questions, everybody has been muted upon entry, so if you have any questions, as much as I love the chat for collaborating and networking, if you have questions, please pop those into the q and a section so that we can try to get to as many of those as possible. If for some reason we're not able to answer all of the questions, those will be sent over to the speakers and they will follow up with you. And now it's my opportunity and pleasure to introduce today's speakers. Today we have Ben Olson, the channel sales director for LiveView. He'll be moderating today's session with him. He'll have Matt Kelly, SVP of business and Market Development for LiveView Technologies and Michael Hanlin, VP of hosted and managed solutions for Allied Universal. All right, Ben, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to you.

Ben Olson:

Awesome. Thank you, Julie. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today with you all. I'm very thrilled to be here with Mike Hanlin as well as Matt Kelly, both gentlemen that I have a tremendous amount of respect for and looking forward to learning from them today. First question that we have today to get things kicked off is Mike, both LVT and Allied Universal are focused on safety, safety of customers, retail workers and guards. How is technology helping guards come home safe at the end of their shift?

Michael Hanlon:

Well, Ben, it's really key to an overall security posture where we don't lead with man guarding. We don't really focus on technology. We really focus on the outcomes and the technology basically blends very smoothly and consistently into that. So when we look to protect our people at locations, we look to protect assets and the employees of the locations that we're entrusted with technology easily blends into that solution and communicates alerts in real time throughout the enterprise.

Ben Olson:

Awesome. Next question, Matt, in your experience as a retail LP leader, how were you managing guards and how is that evolving? Well,

‍Matt Kelley:

At first it's very difficult. I'm sure Mike knows this. It's very difficult to manage a remote workforce, and it all starts with setting clear expectations about what the job to be done is, making sure you have post orders and everybody understands what those post orders are, what kind of data and reporting that the guard company is giving to you so you can make intelligent decisions and better manage the outliers and use them as a strategic partner to be your eyes and ears and report back to you what they're seeing so that you can manage and evolve the program, whether it's through technology or whether it's through that remote workforce from a manned resource out in the parking lot and inside the four walls of your building. But it really comes down to setting those clear expectations and having a feedback loop so that you're iterating on the process in real time to improve on a continual basis.

Ben Olson:

Mike, did you have something to add?

Michael Hanlon:

Yeah, and I, it's a great point, Matt. There's a lot of locations, a lot of sites where we're protecting where it would be nice to have an officer stationed in a fixed post, but that's not always feasible. So utilizing technology allows us to be monitoring and communicate any activity in those areas 24 7 and then relay that information to either a roving patrol or to a fixed post if action is required. So it really becomes a force multiplier. Likewise, there's locations where we're protecting with manned guarding during hours of operation or first and second shift, whereas on third shift we can utilize and lean into technology to protect the site.

Ben Olson:

Awesome. Legacy systems have struggled to keep up dynamic nature of, with the dynamic nature of protests, unrest and violence. How can retailers best respond to this? And this is a question to both Matt and Mike.

Matt Kelley:

Yeah, I can start.

Ben Olson:

Yeah, please.

Matt Kelley:

I was going to say there is no real silver bullet here and leveraging technology is really important to use as a communication tool, but then also to give you real time information so you can be dynamic in your response. Being able to have that force multiplier that Mike talked about is you might not be able to place a guard at every location that's at risk, but leveraging technology to have a focused response where the issue is happening, but then also leveraging that technology to get out ahead of the activity to give real time information to whether it's local law enforcement or your guard resources, really critical in how you respond to these types of events.

Michael Hanlon:

And I think when you use the term Ben Legacy, a lot of systems, the legacy systems that have been out there deployed were designed to record activity and those systems tend to be very different from systems that are used to monitor in real time. And then you also mentioned different events like civil unrest, maybe weather related disaster recovery. When an event occurs at a location, the legacy system that was installed for other purposes may not really protect properly what we need to do on that temporary basis. So when we can rapidly deploy a live use system and then monitor and communicate that activity to the officers on site, that's tremendously valuable to the customer.

Ben Olson:

Awesome. Matt, anything to add to?

Matt Kelley:

That? No, I think what Mike said is really important that the systems of old do not meet the needs of our current or future customers, so how do we continue to leverage and evolve the technology if it's a legacy system and push solution providers to meet those needs or be a strategic partner for those solution providers who are willing to evolve with the times and change how they're building a product to meet the needs of the customer, I think is important.

Michael Hanlon:

Yeah, it's interesting that we've gone this far in without mentioning, we're not talking about a legacy system where it's just a video. We're talking about adding audio, we're talking about adding strobes, or we can output a floodlight to let people know that this site is monitored live, that there's somebody watching. We can speak down and tell people that they're in an area where they're not supposed to be and if they don't move that the police will be dispatched. So an interactive system is really quite different than a legacy system that was designed years ago.

Matt Kelley:

And I'll add to that with the evolution of technology and everybody talks about AI and I don't think we really understand what AI is or how powerful of a tool it will be, and developing that automated response in real time to be able to call out the bad actors as they're coming on site, I think will be really important to give some realness to those systems. Whereas in the past legacy systems, their impact to, if you understand l prcs, see it, get it, fear it, so they have become white noise, the old legacy systems, and to be dynamic in your response in an automated fashion I think is going to be the wave of the future and the technologies and the companies that can adopt that will be the ones that continue to lead the charge in that area.

Ben Olson:

What would you say are some of the challenges in adopting what you just kind of hit on, Matt, obviously change is hard, change is difficult for some of these organizations, but when they're looking at adopting these new technologies, how have you best seen that that's happened in your career to really take that?

Matt Kelley:

Well, first I'll start with the challenges. These legacy systems are often hardwired anchored into the infrastructure of a company. And so you have a huge capital expenditure that goes into developing and implementing these technologies, whereas, and then you have to commit to those because it's a sunk cost. You have to realize the depreciated value of that asset and you to realize the benefit that you put in over time. So rapidly deployable mobile solutions that can be dynamic is the way of the future and not to be anchored or tied into an infrastructure, not just physically, but then also on network, the ability to be off network and still be able to provide that deterrent value is the wave of the future.

Michael Hanlon:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I would take that challenge and turn it into a positive just like Matt said. So rather than having to integrate into an existing BMS or having to go onto the network for the customer, the fact that we can deliver a unit that is self-powered and on a cellular network that doesn't need to integrate into the BMS is a big plus. So not only do we not get shackled by the existing system and IT issues, we get purposely installed and delivered solutions that we can move if site changes happen. So it's really more about this solution overcomes that obstacle rather than the obstacle being in the face of the solution.

Ben Olson:

When it comes to onboarding new technology, how can we make sure that the people who really need the access are able to use it effectively?

Michael Hanlon:

We have a thorough process of the onboarding of our LBT program so that we can not only design it and place the units properly, but that we train and then we have ongoing training and continuous improvement. So it's really not one of these, it's the opposite of a traditional integration where you install a project and then you move on. This is something, it's a service, it's an ongoing solution. These systems are being deployed for outcomes and not being deployed as a set it and forget it. So that continuous improvement and the exercising of the technology is really critical to the success. So we have measurable outcomes, we deliver on KPIs and we report on what's happening with the systems.

‍Matt Kelley:

And Mike, you nailed it from an implementation standpoint, from the solution provider side, I'm thinking about it from my past life, an operator is how you're getting the frontline engagement of those associates who are the end users. So that's where you really, communication is key. As with any program, you have to understand what efficiency or being driven into their business, how this makes their life easier, and really lean into that and overly communicate what the the expected outcome of the program is. You've mentioned those KPIs and always the whiff EM or what's in it for them is clearly articulating that, but then also letting 'em know that they are playing a part in the success of this and being that open feedback loop of getting that feedback, iterating on the process, continue to drive the process improvement that you mentioned is really important, but it's getting that frontline associate engagement and so that they understand what the benefits to them are is really critical from the businesses' perspective to ensure the success of any rollout.

Michael Hanlon:

So we install the systems, we do the field of view call, and then we walk test the analytics. And when we're doing that, we're exercising the systems to deliver on what the customer is looking for, meaning that if we have certain clients where they don't want audio unless the operator verifies the event, whereas other locations will want an immediate prerecorded audio to intervene right away. So these all become elements not just of the go live, but the living playbook and the continuous improvement to make sure that we're delivering on what the customers looking for.

Ben Olson:

Great. Are there any scenarios, what scenarios are best for mobile security units versus guards in your career that you've kind of seen? Does this make sense to bring in guards versus technology specifically mobile RMUs?

Michael Hanlon:

Well, we can scale a lot quicker utilizing both, and so we don't really see it as an either or is there one better than another? Ultimately, it's going to be the look and feel that the customer is looking for. We're never going to have technology delivering CPR, we're never going to have a smiling officer welcoming people through technology. We rely heavily on our highly trained and very dependable guard force for that. Whereas technology then blends into, as I was talking about earlier, whether it's certain hours or certain areas where having an officer there at all times really isn't economically feasible or really doesn't make sense from a pragmatic nature.

Ben Olson:

Matt, did you have any thoughts on that?

Matt Kelley:

Yeah, I think Mike hit on it earlier. It really is that force multiplier, and I know that's kind of a buzzword in the industry, but being able to spread your dollars further is really where you have that blend of technology and warm bodies out in the field. Examples are just think about you have large sites where it's hard to patrol using technology to have the focus of those guards to be where they need to be at the given point in time. They need to be there. I think is an example of specific scenarios where in the distribution or supply chain facility or manufacturing facility in retail, you can have big dcs or you have offsite locations where you might not necessarily need a guard, but you need eyes and ears out there and then if something happens, then you can direct your guard to go to that remote location.

Michael Hanlon:

Yeah, I would say, I didn't lean into this earlier for an obvious site, but dark sites, sites that have been either temporarily or permanently shut down, we have been seeing a lot of use cases where technology makes more sense, where at certain hours that no one's expected and technology can immediately alert us to when people are there. Another part of the facility would be, we've been saying this now for 15, 20 years, let us guard the alleys, let us guard the dumpsters. Where putting an officer there isn't really feasible, but the cost if there's a legal dumping can be tremendous. So it becomes a very economically and reliable delivery of ROI.

Ben Olson:

Matt, what's your advice for retailers struggling to protect employees and assets at high crime locations?

Matt Kelley:

I think we touched a lot on the technological aspect of focusing on the four walls of your building or the perimeter of your parking lot, but it goes farther beyond that of think about the people who are responding when an incident does happen, making sure that they are engaged, they're willing to report when the need arises, so bringing in local law enforcement, communicating to them everything that you as an organization is doing to try to mitigate the risk in the area and say, I've done all that I can. Do I need your help? It could be pulling in the chief of police or a sergeant or a captain. It could be engaging with the local mayor's office or the municipality city council saying, we're doing all that we can and we are a source of revenue from a tax standpoint. We need your help. We've exhausted all of our resources, but also understanding where the funding is going for the local municipalities, just because it's going to a certain department doesn't mean that they're the ones that are using it. It could be another department or a subset of that department so you're not engaged with the right people. So understanding up and down the hierarchy within local government of who is responding, who's managing the day-to-day and bringing them onsite to say we've done all that we can do, but also partnering with local businesses in the community to develop that strategy as well is really important. So it's not just so you're going at it alone, but involving the entire community. You really are trying to make the community safer. Absolutely.

Ben Olson:

Mike, you mentioned alleys and dumpsters. What are some other use cases for guards as we add tech into the future, into the picture?

Michael Hanlon:

So we've had a lot of success with multifamily housing. So just like Matt was saying in terms of the duty of care and dispatching the police. So the impetus should be on using the technology not just to protect the site better, to protect the officers to not dispatch police if not necessary. So take the multifamily housing environment where you have a group of people after hours hanging out in an area they're not supposed to supposed to be. You can politely come on, do a voice down, ask them to leave, and you don't have to put an officer in harm's way. You don't have to dispatch the police. So you're taking that duty of care on yourself, which is something that, as Matt was saying, is appreciated by law enforcement and it helps protect our security officers.

Ben Olson:

Awesome. Both of you mentioned working with police and community safety. How do retailers strengthen that private slash public partnership?

Michael Hanlon:

We have to be proactive. We have to go out and communicate, here are the steps, here's what we're taking on, here's the technology and here's our main guarding efforts and here are the outcomes we're expecting and keep them informed so that they understand that we're not just calling them every time that we see something, that we've taken those precautions, we've taken those steps and layers of our protection.

Matt Kelley:

And I think to take that a step further is really developing a corporate strategy around developing those partnerships, developing programs that let the local law enforcement know that when an incident happens, they're not going to be the first call, whether it's having a day where you invite officers in and you provide them with a meal or you have a landing spot for patrol officers to come in and do their paperwork or even designating parking spaces for them to come when they're doing the patrols and park a vehicle there and sit in their vehicle and do that paperwork. It really does go a long way to let them know that you as a retailer or even a member of that community do care about their wellbeing and want to make their job easier because they don't want to just be looked at as the first responder. They want to be the last line of defense knowing that you've exhausted all your resources

Michael Hanlon:

And you're spot on and be part of what we explain. And part of that process in the education is when we call you, we're going to give you the up-to-date information and we're going to monitor the location and we're going to relay in real time what we're seeing. So gone are the days where we're just saying, Hey, we have an alert at this location, please send somebody. It's we have three individuals on the north side, we've asked them to leave and they're continuing to cut copper or they're still in the area and we're still monitoring this.

Ben Olson:

Matt, you mentioned something like as you develop those relationships, how does that affect the business? How does that affect the organization overall as you're developing those relationships in the community and strengthening that bond? What kind of positive impacts does that have on the organization as a whole?

Matt Kelley:

Well, I think firstly, you, you're trying to protect your frontline associates and the people who are visiting your locations, so that gives the community a sense of wellbeing when they have see a patrol officer drive through in the parking lot on a regular basis or just come in and check in on the community to see how they're doing. And it shows one, how you can run the play, but then if you have people who are struggling, you can use it as a teach coach and train tool. So that's where it goes back to what we talked about, being able to get data from your guarding provider or the technology, looking at the data holistically, looking at outliers and managing those outliers versus here's what the good looks like and this is the things that they're doing to drive that sort of engagement in those relationships. And then taking those same learnings and looking at the bottom of the stack rank and using those good and implementing those where they may, the bad performers may not be running the play the way they should.

Michael Hanlon:

Yeah, I agree with that completely, Matt. A lot of times it's about exercising the technology. It's about expanding the standard operating procedure. So oftentimes Allied Universal, our monitoring and response center will get a call from somebody pulling up to a dark site or where we have a unit at a retailer or location where you have a lone worker that's going to be leaving. And so they'll call into the monitoring and response center, we will pull up the LBT, we will do a voice down announcement and we'll communicate back to the person that's called in saying, we viewed all the cameras, we don't see anybody there. And then we'll watch them as they walk to their car or we'll escort them as they come into the building. So as Matt was saying, it's that duty of care, that protection of our first line and our people at the forefront

‍Ben Olson:

When we talk about making our community safer and helping out in any aspect that we can, brings me to think about organized retail crime. Organized retail crime is something that is still hurting our communities and so hurting some more than others, but what are some solutions that you have all encountered that are having a positive impact on helping that?

Michael Hanlon:

The highly visible aspect of VT LVT is not designed to blend into the location and to look like a rock, like those fake speakers that we see, so they're highly visible. We find just the blinking blue light right there then and there is something that is effective and it makes it clear to the bad actors and the people that are looking for protection that there's a camera system here, it's live, it's working, and then it's further reinforced by the active, either the real operator driven audio or the prerecorded audio or the activation of a strobe or a light.

Matt Kelley:

And I think that's a great point of psychologically, those blue flashing lights. So the announcement profiles, letting you know that the site's being recorded draws the attention up to a camera to validate that. But not only that, there's always a calculation of what is the risk versus reward? What is the likelihood of me getting caught when a bad actor comes on site? And to the extent that you can harden the target and have an overt presence, letting them know whatever the technology is, whether it's signage saying, Hey, we've got locking cart technology, or we've got some other mitigation tactic. The calculation and introducing of friction into the bad actor's experience is going to drive them off of your location and help them go to a place where the likelihood of them getting caught is lower than on your site.

Michael Hanlon:

No, that's an excellent point. And we often use analytics when we program analytics, we'll detect outside of a fence line. So when Matt talks about the risk for reward by detecting somebody and doing a voice down before they start cutting the fence, before they breach the property line, it comes into that calculation of the risk reward. So the bad actor that's sitting there thinking, okay, a police response time in this area is X, so I have this amount of time to do this, they start calculating very differently on the risk reward of this being a site they want to penetrate.

Ben Olson:

I think overall, just having our units deployed in those locations, I know for me personally, having a wife and children that go out and are in the community helps 'em feel safe. In fact, earlier on in my career at LiveView Technologies, I was out as part of a deployment in a retail parking lot and we were setting it up in a parking stall and a young lady basically came up and parked right next to us and it was full, it was almost an empty parking lot. And I asked her, just out of curiosity, I said, what was it that motivated you to want to park right here, right next to this mobile security unit when there's so many different empty parking spots? And she looked at me and she said, because it makes me feel safe. And I think that's something that's important to realize that our solution deters hopefully the bad guys from even doing what they were going to do, but also to allow people to feel safe is something that sometimes I think we underestimate. We talk about also, what about case management? How are we capturing key details from onsite guards and employees and packaging that up with video evidence to hand over to the investigators? And I'd be curious, Matt, from you and your experience, what that process was like for you and how hopefully having LVT units on site made that a little bit easier for you.

Matt Kelley:

And I think that goes back to strategic partnerships and making sure you have the right companies that you're working with and using your guard resources to get the data, giving them the right tools and resources to input the data, and then having the right tools and resources to aggregate that up to look at outliers and then develop case packets that's as robust as possible to give to local law enforcement because we see it time and time again where local law enforcement, their resources are tapped out. They don't even have enough patrol officers to do normal patrols. Same thing goes with detectives. To the extent that you can give them a complete case packet to where it's just easy for them to take a look at it and give it to the local district attorney, makes their life much easier and they're going to take, be more willing to take a case from your company then they will from the other companies within the community because you've done your job in giving them all the details that they need to hold the bad actors accountable and then give that to the district attorney so that you have a prosecutable case that's ready to go rather than having to do a lot of legwork on the backend.

Michael Hanlon:

Allied Universal, we really call it technology enabled guarding, so we don't separate one from the other. So that case management, whether it's presenting to law enforcement or it's presenting to the customer, it really gets delivered as a single solution and it's all connected. We've actually integrated the LDT platform into our automation platform and our monitoring and response centers so that everything's synced up and all activity is connected. We recently completed, as you're aware, we've been a pilot with a large client and we connected our manned guarding and our LVT solution outcomes into a single report. I was very compelling. It was really diverse what was being done. I am reading certain use cases where I'm taking notes and thinking, this is cool stuff, and it needs to be added into what we talk about with other clients. These are measurable outcomes that are man guarding have extracted from our LVT deployment.

Ben Olson:

Yeah, obviously when we talk about measurements and we talk about, we've talked about KPIs, what are some measurements of success for guarding that would be helpful for retailers to track? And Matt, that might be a good question for you specifically.

Matt Kelley:

Yeah, and different retailers or different companies might call just basic serious incidents in the parking lot, different things, but it really comes down to what's happening out in the parking lot and then the spillover from what's happening in the parking lot into the four walls of the building and being able to tie those upstream and downstream impacts to develop a holistic picture of that ROI or the benefits from whatever solution or program you're putting in place. So it could be what's vandalism, vagrancy, loitering in the parking lot, burglaries, robberies, and you can have different categorizations or different severities of those different types of incidents and then develop a composite score of how that store is performing, but you would want to weight those differently as well so that an assault would be overly weighted, then loitering in the parking lot, but then how does that spill over into the store?

Could it be break-ins that are continuing to happen and that's taking time away from your leadership to be able to teach coach and train people, or there could be theft that's happening in the store that's taking time away from your frontline associates to provide excellent customer service to your people, to your shoppers, and that could impact sales. If you're having theft issues, are you just replenishing on shelf availability at the rate of return and that impacts your labor model. So rather than focusing just on specific metrics, you need to look at the holistic picture and be able to tie upstream and downstream impacts to have the complete picture of the impact to your organization. And that could go all the way up into the supply chain as well.

Michael Hanlon:

Yeah, the measurements get challenging. Thinking of your story earlier, Ben, of the woman that said she felt safer parking there, now extrapolate that into she's going into a store that she otherwise wouldn't have been going into at that time of night. So that's a challenging metric. You need to look perhaps at similar locations, similar stores that don't have a unit versus ones that do a lot of times the issues that we're preventing and not having a dispatch or not having an officer. There is a really good outcome in my world of monitoring. You have noise and you have alarms and then you have action. Well, if you can do a voice down, if you can have a live view unit, prevent a dispatch, that's a great outcome. You prevented not just the damage, but you've also protected resources.

Ben Olson:

Awesome. I know we live in an interesting environment and some retailers are experimenting with some pretty extreme measures, armed guards at every entry and exit point, receipt checks, et cetera. When is it necessary to implement a strategy like this and how can companies like Allied Universal help in this venture?

Michael Hanlon:

Well, allied has an assessment led approach, Ben, and it's not just in the initial deployment. It's an ongoing basis. So whether or not an officer is armed, whether technology is going to be used and how it's going to be used, it really comes from that assessment led approach. It is not a one size fits all and it's not something that can be established and then left alone it has to continuous. We have to work towards continuous improvement. We have to look at the changing risk environment, what's going on, not just for that customer, but in that location, what's going on in that industry. There's a lot of different factors that go into evaluating the threat and staying one step ahead of the bad actors. So this isn't a either or. It's a blended layered approach, and it's based upon vigilance and continually trying to do the best that you can to protect based upon what's occurring and the budgets. That's not something we've mentioned a lot before, but certainly the economics come into play as well.

Ben Olson:

A lot of retailers are well versed on crime prevention through environmental design. When you look at a location, are you thinking about this when it comes to recommending guards and technology? And this question for both of you?

Michael Hanlon:

Certainly the environmental design is really not just key in assessing risk and assessing the placement of technology, but it's also a factor in the economics that we were talking about earlier. You're certainly going to have deterrence from certain environmental aspects or locations of where the threat is going to be highest level. So back to my earliest statement where we're putting our officers in those highly visible, highly active areas and utilizing analytics on cameras and detection and insurance in areas where people aren't expected to be, that's fundamental to providing not just the best solution but to meet budgets.

Matt Kelley:

Yeah, I think if you think about the as is principles of sted and environmental design, it's really important to display that security posture that you are taking security seriously, not just to the bad actors, but to your community, your shoppers, your associates, though the good actors have a sense of safety and wellbeing when they're coming on site because you want it to be known as the business in the community that is taking it seriously, but then also the bad actors of, Hey, we're doing everything we can to stop you. And that starts with what is your security posture when people come on site, whether you notice a live view tower in the parking lot or a guard roaming the parking lot or bollard to the front of the store or cameras everywhere, or what are sight lines looking like inside of a store as you're entering in? Can people see me as I'm going through self-checkout, things like that. What is that impression of control all the way down to your labor model? So it really is that holistic approach of what is everything that they're considering. So when that bad actor comes on site, that calculation comes to, well, it doesn't make sense for me to try to steal something from here. I'm going to go down and do it somewhere else where they haven't considered those things.

‍Ben Olson:

As we're kind of wrapping things up here, and as we again appreciate both of you for your time and for the thoughts that you have and the experience you bring to the table here, and I'm sure all of our viewers are appreciative as well as we close things out maybe from both of you, I'd love to hear to wrap a bow on all of this when it comes to leveraging, again, technology with the guard services, I guess parting words, parting advice or recommendations for those are listening? Sure, this has been helpful to them. What would you have to say in closing? And maybe Mike, I can pass it to you first and then Matt would love to hear from you also.

Michael Hanlon:

Yeah, I'll go back to, I mean the title of this webinar, and it's not an either or. It's a blending of, so it is important that we don't have a conflict or we go into any location, any customer, and think before we do the assessment that this is going to be a man guarding only or this could be a technology only, that we have an open mind, and then we work towards utilizing what will work best for both budget and reducing risk to meet the operational needs, to meet the security needs, and then we continually improve and assess to make sure that we have it right.

Matt Kelley:

Yeah, I think Mike nailed it in that there is no set and forget it. This is not a static solution when it comes to blending technology and human resources out in the field. It's more of a dynamic situation where you're constantly reassessing because the environment's going to change day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, and the bad actors, I mean, a lot of times they're smart people and they're trying to see around the corner to see what you're doing, and Mike mentioned that you've got to stay one step ahead of them. So that requires continuous improvement and there is no silver bullet. So making sure that you have partners that are willing to come along for that journey with you and not just be willing to put one sort of solution out there and looking at the job to be done and then working backwards from there to build a strategic solution rather than just throwing a widget at the problem, I think is really, really what the industry needs to be thinking about.

Ben Olson:

Well said, both of you, gentlemen, again, appreciate your time. Julie would like to go ahead and pass it back to you.

Julie Lawson:

Perfect. Well, thank you so much. Y'all were awesome. I loved hearing the focus on community safety, just specifically both of these solutions. They go together really well. One doesn't necessarily substitute for the other. So I love how you talked about the fact that for police departments that they're not necessarily the first line of defense, the first line of the defense is the solution. So that way it shows that those police departments and those local law enforcement are individuals that are tapped out in resources, just like you said, Matt, that you are doing something as a retailer before you actually turn it over to them. So kudos on everything that you guys said there from just the solutions to the psychology. But we did have a couple of questions come in either during live or previously during registration. So I'm going to go ahead and start with one that came in during registration. I think it's a really great question that probably a lot of folks on this call might have. How do we leverage guards and tech and not send a message to green shoppers that our locations are dangerous?

Matt Kelley:

I think that really comes down to messaging, Julie. I don't think that it's shifting. The perception from the public standpoint is just because you have a guard, it doesn't have to be this is a dangerous location. It could be this business cares about my safety and I'm there doing something about it. So you create that welcoming environment just like you want the inside of your retail location to have the best products at the best prices in the right locations. You also want to have resources on the perimeter, the building and out in the parking lot, deployed in such a way that they know that they are safe when they come on site. Because Ben mentioned it, we all have families. I don't want my family going there without me if I don't feel that it would be safe for them. So to the extent that they are deploying technologies and resources to make everybody safer on that location, I feel better about sending my family there.

Julie Lawson:

Anything you want to add? Yeah,

Michael Hanlon:

I agree completely. I mean, a lot of times our officers are greeters, they're ambassadors, they're standing up, they're smiling, and they're welcoming to people, and the perception is more positive than negative. The same is true for technology. So I wouldn't not buy a house in a town that had a big fire department thinking There's a lot of fires here. I'd rather know there's a good fire department there in case I had a fire.

Julie Lawson:

Yeah, absolutely. All right. So this next question came in live from one of our attendees here, and I think this is probably going to go to you, Mike. How do you combat the turnover rate with man guarding?

Michael Hanlon:

I'm sorry, can you repeat it?

Julie Lawson:

How do you combat the turnover rate with guards?

Michael Hanlon:

So that's a great question Apt for this conversation, right? I would say right off the bat that we are looking to protect our guards and using this technology to work in blended solution alongside our guards and knowing that part of what we're protecting is working in concert with them. It is really important that they know that we're making these investments. We're not putting you on an island and saying, good luck. We're giving you all of the best tools. We're providing all of the best utilities that we can to keep them safe as well of our customers. So thanks for that question. It's a good

Julie Lawson:

One. No, I think that's actually a really great way to put it, is that it's not just for the community, not just for the folks working at the store and not just for the folks visiting and shopping at the store, it's also for those folks that you have as well. So I think that that was great question and I love how you kind of looped that together. All right, so this next question, I'll start with you Matt. What's the best way to position leadership that doesn't see value in either one of these kind of solutions?

Matt Kelley:

I think that first you're starting with what are the metrics? Because I know the companies that you all work for from a retail standpoint aren't nonprofit organizations. How is this benefiting the organization as a whole, starting with those upstream and downstream impacts, not just focusing on specific security metrics, but how does this holistically impact the organization to drive either top line sales or profitability or both. But I then think it's very, very important to bring your leadership out into the field so they can see what's actually happening, how it impacts the frontline associates hear that feedback from them in person. I think that's oftentimes a unrealized way to get projects sold, whereas if they're questioning the benefit of it, just taking them out into the field and doing some store walks, I think that's critical in the implementation of any sort of project.

Julie Lawson:

Great points. I love how you said it without saying it, but identify the problem and then really show the problem to leadership to help them get the buy-in. Mike, anything to add there?

Michael Hanlon:

No, it's not always simple math to provide that analysis, but we do work hard to show those values. If you can't measure it, you can't show value, so you have to apply a measurement factor to it. I know LVT had a great use case story in their early days of a big box retailer that had great success, and another retailer actually saw an increase in their crime because they were adjacent or in close proximity to LVT deployments. So there's a great story of two different parties seeing success with a solution, but as I talked about earlier, some of the measurements may be like the story Ben told of the woman that's going into shopping because she feels more safe during those hours. So you need to look at some of the nuances and some of the more comparing assets across your portfolio of deployed versus non-deployed locations. But you can in that math, you'll see real value.

Julie Lawson:

And I think it's interesting, that story that you brought up, Ben, being in the LP security industry for as long as I have, I had never really thought about it like that. I'm like, okay, well, this is a great tool obviously to have out there, but from a safety perspective, an actual individual that's shopping in the store to say, I feel safer by parking here. I think that that's really just a great story to share. All right. A couple more questions that have come in during registration. I'm going to ask those, but if you have any other questions, we still have a couple more minutes, feel free to pop those into the q and a chat or q and a box. All right. So the next one here is if we're working on budgets for next year, what tools should they be looking into and what's a good mix of spend between tech and guards? Because to the point of the actual title, the delicate balance, it is balance. So what's a good mix of spend and what tools should they be looking at?

Matt Kelley:

I think it's tough to try to allocate a set percentage of your resource to certain sort of technologies or resources. I think you really have to look at first you have to develop a good risk model, and then that will kind of guide you to allocate how you're allocating those resources. So you have to have a good input tool to be able to track and manage and measure those KPIs so that then you can build that good risk model. But then you have to develop that menu of options. If my highest risk locations, I'm going to have all of these technologies that are going to get deployed to this high risk profile store or this bucket of stores. And then you go from there. You don't have unlimited resources. And unfortunately, asset protection and loss prevention oftentimes gets the short end of the stick when it comes to budgetary considerations. So making sure that you are being as efficient with your resources with that blend of technology and people out in the field is, I think is the starting, but it comes down to being able to tell the story.

Julie Lawson:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it comes down to as well, I love the fact that these solutions are, I'm going to call it mobile or movable, that it's not necessarily, I think one of you guys had said it earlier, it's not a sunk cost at a specific location because let's be honest, as soon as you solve folks going or stopping going to those locations because you've implemented these solutions, they're going to move to another location. So it's nice that you'll be able to, that the retailers are able to move those resources as needed without it being a permanently installed fixture. Mike, anything that you want to add there?

Michael Hanlon:

As far as the LVTI like to use the term they're permanently temporary. You're right, flexibility in the budget, but I think when you talk about the blend of the budget, if you're looking at 2025, you have to first start with looking at what happened during 2024 and applying that into your assessment going forward into next year. Then you really have to look at that blending of what's working for you? Has your occupancy changed? Have your hours of operation changed? These are all things that need to be part of that ongoing assessment. They really should be done on a more regular basis, not just quarterly, sorry, not just for budgets, but it is certainly, that's why we call it a delicate balance, right? It's the ongoing continuous improvement and making sure that the allocation of resources are the most effective to your operations.

Julie Lawson:

Yeah, no, I absolutely love that. So I'm positive that you guys have synergies with common customers. You don't have to mention specifically any of those, but I'm curious if you can mention any of those, especially because you do have those synergies of working together. Are there any results? And Mike, you had alluded to a report that's potentially out there that you've given to your retailer, but are there any results that you guys can share from that layered approach of leveraging both solutions?

‍Michael Hanlon:

We do have a client, I'm not unfortunately going to give the name where they started off small. We had a single location. We're now up to seven locations, and this is really part of their standard operating procedures where they are dark sites. They use a combination of man guarding and rapid deployment that's monitored by the Allied Universal Monitoring and Response Center. And quite frankly, we were delivering quarterly reports to them, but they didn't even need those. They saw a tremendous down people coming onto their sites, vandalism just activity at their locations, even driving by traffic stopped or was reduced dramatically right from the first location. So it is been a tremendous use case study or case study for us at Allied and for LVT.

Julie Lawson:

I love that. It sounds like it's kind of a crawl, walk, run approach like, we're going to crawl, we're going to see if it works, and then as soon as we see that it works, we're going to walk and then we're just going to run at some point. So I love that. Matt, anything that you would add there?

Matt Kelley:

Yeah, I mean, I think as we continue to have more common customers, we will be able to provide reporting, do white papers, and then partnerships with groups like the LPRC or rela where we can do industry-wide studies and develop those partnerships. I think that we will be able to give better data to show the benefits of blending technologies across multiple solution providers and vendor partners.

Julie Lawson:

I love the blending technologies part because not everybody has a one size fits all solution. There are definitely needs for multiple solutions for different reasons. Any closing thoughts? Quick closing thoughts, Matt?

Matt Kelley:

No, just appreciate everybody's participation, willing to jump on, take time out of their busy day. And then if you have any questions, please reach out to me and I'll help. Whether it's building a strategy, helping from a process improvement standpoint. It doesn't have to be exclusive to mobile security units. It can be to any physical security strategy.

Julie Lawson:

All right. Well, with that, I'm going to go ahead and start closing out our webinar. Thank you again to LiveView for sponsoring today's webinar, the Delicate Science of Layering Guards and Technology, Mike, Matt, y'all were absolutely amazing. If you are interested in getting your LPC or LPQ, we do have a promo code that is available. It's going to be LPF 2024 that's going to be available through November 30th. So feel free to use that for a membership for the ORC course. For the L-P-C-L-P-Q. Would love for you to get to take advantage of that as well as the LPF is giving away five certifications, course scholarships, I should say. Those scholarships are non-transferable. You do have to have attended to be eligible for that. So be on the lookout for your email. Those emails will be sent out tomorrow. You do have one week to claim those scholarships.

And then last, but absolutely, certainly not least, if you have not signed up for our webinar, please, please do so. These actually, I shouldn't say webinar. If you have not signed up for our webinar notifications, please do. So. Here's the QR code. It's going to take you to a link on how to get the email notifications for all of our webinars. We still have a slew of them coming up here in the next couple of weeks, so there's definitely a topic for everyone, but please sign up if for some reason you are not interested in signing up, please join us on our LinkedIn page. Also on LiveView and Allieds LinkedIn pages. But on our LinkedIn page, we also have all of our webinars listed as well. So thank you again to LiveView for sponsoring today's webinar. Y'all were awesome. I absolutely appreciate your time. Ben, Mike, Matt, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Matt Kelley:

Thank you. Thank you.

Julie Lawson:

Thank you.