special feature


For a large multiple retailer, a series of high profile data breaches can cause potentially ruinous financial and reputational damage – for example, those suffered by US retailer Target in 2013. On a positive note, however, 65% of respondents felt that their business was in a ‘good to excellent’ position to prevent and respond to cyber attacks. The report recommends that: “Better sharing of intelligence, information and cyber security best practice would help the industry as a whole to defend itself against cyber threats.” Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, recommends collaboration between retailers


and the authorities to help combat crime and its effects: “Retailers are keen to work in partnership to reduce retail crime and their support for some innovative partnership initiatives demonstrates this commitment. The MOPAC Business Crime strategy in London continues to act as an example of best practice that we would like to see adopted elsewhere. And there are other interesting projects in development, such as The Co- operative’s agreement with Nottinghamshire police, which adopts the ‘primary authority’ model for how crime affecting the business can be dealt with nationally by all forces.


Tightening police budgets inevitably presents difficult choices about policing resources and priorities. This makes the case for police and businesses to tackle retail crime together even stronger.” The British Retail Consortium is the trade association for all UK retailers, aiming to make a positive difference to the retail industry and the customers it serves. Covering 51% of the retail industry by turnover and accounting for 1.4 million employees, the BRC Retail Crime Survey provides a representative cross-section of UK retailing, from large multiples to smaller retailers and including pure online retailers.


Total offences & cost of crime Retail crime had a direct cost of £613m in 2014-15,


up 2% on 2013-14. There were 750,144 offences resulting in loss or damage to property last year. Extrapolation across the industry as a whole, this means there were an estimated 4.1m offences against the UK retail industry.


Insider threats


Employee theft cost an average of £1,114 per incident in 2014-15. Theft by employees accounted for 6% of all retail crime by value. Respondents reported they had suffered other types of malicious insider activity too, including leaking of sensitive information and fraud.


Customer theft


Customer theft in volume terms decreased by 2%in 2014-15.


Fraud


Fraud accounted for 36% of the total cost of crime in 2014-15. The number of incidents of fraud increased 55 % compared to last year


The average cost of customer theft increased by 35%, to £325 per incident: a record high.


Robbery


Each robbery cost on average £1,433. Robbery increased by 6% in 2014-15 to 5


robberies per 100 stores. The average cost per incident increased by 12%.


Burglary and criminal damage The number of burglaries increased by 13%


Cyber security


The majority of retailers reported that the number of cyber-attacks had either increased or remained unchanged in 2014-15 and that they pose a critical to substantial threat to their business. 100% said they would report a cyber attack to the police.


compared to last year. The average cost per crime was £2,008. The average cost per incident of criminal damage was £802 in 2014-15, so the number of offences was up 4% from last year.


Violence against staff In 2014-15, there were 41 incidents of


Crime prevention The median spend on crime


and loss prevention was £3.1m per retailer in 2014-15.


violence and abuse per 1,000 staff, up from 32 last year. Most were cases of non-physical abuse or aggressive behaviour, but 21 incidents per 1,000 staff were violent.


To read the BRC’s full report, visit http://goo.gl/qQ8h2n SGB-SPORTS.COM | 13


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