The retailer was previously running an in-house developed suite of data warehouse reports, and while it could specify the type of exceptions that it wanted the system to look out for, this approach was very labour intensive. Colin Culleton, head of risk and loss prevention at HMV, says: “Our old system only flagged up basic transaction exceptions, with further interrogation requiring searches via dual databases. We were impressed by the way that other retailers which use the Sysrepublic solution had been able to work to prioritised to-do lists, allowing the team to plan its day around the key hits from alerts in the system.”

Due to the IT integration of Waterstone’s and HMV, the decision was made to opt for a hosted solution, to reduce pressure on the IT department. The project started with a four week, 30 store proof of concept. The full implementation went live just before Christmas 2008. “The system is already meeting and exceeding expectations. It’s an industry leading solution, and we like the fact that it has obviously been designed by security experts, rather that just from an IT perspective. We are also able to take advantage of the R&D investment that some of the large supermarkets, who are also customers, have put into the system,” says Culleton.