Tommy Bahama reduces LP investigation times with March Networks

Tommy Bahama, the island-inspired clothing and home furnishing retailer based in Seattle, Washington, has selected March Networks’ comprehensive retail solution to gain faster, more robust loss prevention (LP) capabilities, improve recovery and apprehension rates with higher-quality video evidence, and better safeguard customers and employees at 130 stores worldwide.
 
Tommy Bahama’s Director of Loss Prevention and Operations, Mark Anderson, led the search for a new video surveillance solution to replace an older system that was no longer performing as needed. The winning solution had to be extremely reliable, bandwidth friendly and able to support both existing analog and new IP cameras. It also had to have centralized video management and offer advanced tools to help his team conduct video searches and LP investigations faster and more effectively. Following a six-month evaluation done in cooperation with Tommy Bahama’s IT group and leading systems integrator Diebold, the retailer selected the March Networks solution as its standard for all new locations and retrofits.
 
Sixty-five stores are already equipped with the technology, which includes new Searchlight for Retail software, 8000 Series Hybrid Network Video Recorders and MegaPX WDR MiniDome Z IP cameras, all managed with March Networks Command Enterprise software. An additional nine sites are expected to be up and running before the end of the year.
 
March Networks Searchlight for Retail is video-based business intelligence software that integrates surveillance video with point-of-sale (POS) transaction data in a powerful browser-based reporting dashboard. The software enables Tommy Bahama LP staff to conduct rapid searches across all stores simultaneously by transaction type or amount, and create customized reports based on key performance metrics, such as showing all voids or cash refunds between specific dollar amounts. Staff can simply review the daily reports and click through to the associated video to see what happened in further detail. If a theft has occurred, the combined transaction data and visual evidence is easily exported and serves as compelling case evidence for use in recoveries or prosecution.
 
Searchlight also integrates intelligent video analytics — including people counting, queue length and dwell time — to provide retailers with valuable insights into customer behavior and service, store operations and promotional success. In combination with the software’s business analytics reporting, it offers retailers the ability to analyze and compare store performance and trends at one or many locations and identify opportunities for improvement.