Regional grocer gets jump on fraud
Texas-based grocery retailer Brookshire Brothers is using advanced analytics to stay ahead of fraud schemes.
Brookshire Brothers, which operates more than 100 stores in Texas and Louisiana, leverages the Profitect sales and exception-based reporting (EBR) module to reduce fraud and improve compliance. The company’s asset protection department is working with the operations and finance department to leverage Profitect’s prescriptive analytics technology to detect markdown abuse, post voids, and other criminal activity by associates and external subjects, including organized retail crime rings.
Prescriptive analytics applies artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze data in near-real-time to uncover ongoing issues and recommend remedial actions. Brookshire Brothers has been able to identify specific fraudulent activities such as employee loyalty abuse, excessive markdowns of merchandise, vendor coupon fraud, fictitious refunds, cashiers with excessive void activity, low-performing department sales per customer, excessive credit card use, and fraudulent credit cards being used to purchase fuel. The grocer has also incorporated learnings from fraud analysis into its associate training.
“As an organization, we realized we needed to take our Asset Protection department in a new direction, and in order to do so, we needed a tool to bring information to us instead of having to manually search for issues,” said Brian Lair, VP, asset protection, Brookshire Brothers. “We chose Profitect’s prescriptive analytics for this purpose. The information they deliver is now provided to us in the form of an opportunity. This allows us to easily search and react to multiple potential internal issues, increase productivity, and identify any possible training concerns.”
Brookshire Brothers, which operates more than 100 stores in Texas and Louisiana, leverages the Profitect sales and exception-based reporting (EBR) module to reduce fraud and improve compliance. The company’s asset protection department is working with the operations and finance department to leverage Profitect’s prescriptive analytics technology to detect markdown abuse, post voids, and other criminal activity by associates and external subjects, including organized retail crime rings.
Prescriptive analytics applies artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze data in near-real-time to uncover ongoing issues and recommend remedial actions. Brookshire Brothers has been able to identify specific fraudulent activities such as employee loyalty abuse, excessive markdowns of merchandise, vendor coupon fraud, fictitious refunds, cashiers with excessive void activity, low-performing department sales per customer, excessive credit card use, and fraudulent credit cards being used to purchase fuel. The grocer has also incorporated learnings from fraud analysis into its associate training.
“As an organization, we realized we needed to take our Asset Protection department in a new direction, and in order to do so, we needed a tool to bring information to us instead of having to manually search for issues,” said Brian Lair, VP, asset protection, Brookshire Brothers. “We chose Profitect’s prescriptive analytics for this purpose. The information they deliver is now provided to us in the form of an opportunity. This allows us to easily search and react to multiple potential internal issues, increase productivity, and identify any possible training concerns.”