Former Global Vice President of Asset Protection at The Home Depot and Director of Loss Prevention of Walmart, Keith Aubele, discusses the value of having a handle on your technology assets.
One of retailers’ biggest challenges is “keeping up.” The primary focus is to deliver an exceptional shopping experience every visit. Yet that single, seemingly simple objective is just the visible part of an enormous iceberg of supporting tasks:
- Ensuring the supply chain can and does deliver the right merchandise in the right quantities, at the right time
- Securing the store to avoid unwanted losses and to ensure a safe visit for the customer
- Operating the store and having the entire team ready to serve customers
- Deploying the right technologies that will support all these efforts in a cost effective way
Suffice it to say that retail is a complicated business with lots of moving parts. The demands of running the retail business often leave operators with gaps: gaps in knowledge, gaps in tasks that need to be completed, and gaps in communication. It is unavoidable, as there are only so many resources and so many hours in a day.
When I served as both the VP of Asset Protection for The Home Depot and as Director of Loss Prevention for Walmart, by and large the tools were not available to create and maintain a complete catalog of your technology assets, their “born on” date, condition, warranty status, and location. That information was resident in the heads of the IT team. Today, technology and services like Telaid’s Site Survey and Asset Optimization offering enable this kind of bird’s-eye-view of retailers’ technology assets.
Based on my experience playing on the field, here are some of the big benefits of having this kind of access to real-time information about your technology assets:
- Avoid double paying for repairs. When a piece of technology breaks, generally there is an urgent need to have it fixed. In the heat of the moment, speed is the primary concern. However, in many cases, this equipment may still be under warranty, unbeknownst to the retailer. The result is double paying for repairs. While not a big deal for a single piece of equipment, it does become a big deal for large volumes of repairs. With product and warranty information in-hand, retailers can save a bundle on repair work.
- Account for equipment – literally. Because retailers often lack the copious records to provide the “born on” date, equipment is not properly amortized on the books. If equipment is retired early, it should be written off on the books at the time of retirement. However, if not, is should be amortized over its “useful life,” generally 7 years. Proper accounting for these assets makes a difference to the bottom line.
- Use what you have and maximize ROI - Most retailers have a stock of completely new, unused equipment sitting in warehouses and back offices. Yet they order new equipment for locations, while perfectly good equipment sits in the box. With an inventory of technology assets, retailers can stop needless spending on duplicate equipment and maximize ROI on existing purchases.
A real-time inventory of IT assets provides a tremendously important support structure that allows retailers to more efficiently and cost effectively tackle the complex tasks associated with running the business.
Still not convinced? Capture the information in a few store locations or in a region. Take it from someone who has been in retail for decades: this information is valuable and will result in significant savings.