Retailers are re-defining the role that security technology plays within their stores. John Smith, Vice President of Retail Sales for ADT Europe, Middle East and Africa, explains how competition is driving greater focus on business intelligence as a differentiation tool allowing retailers to get closer to their customers.

Leading retailers in Europe share a common goal when it comes to their security strategy - they want their investment to go well beyond loss prevention. Driven by strong competition to gather increasing amounts of data on store operations and customer behaviour, they are seeking greater intelligence and analytics from their technology systems.

New business intelligence applications will make it easier for retailers to collect and analyse point of sale data to help limit losses and improve overall efficiency. Business intelligence software can deliver an actionable view of business data in areas such as loss prevention, employee theft, vendor management, refund management, case management and inventory control.