Your central hub for resolving and preventing retail crime. Privacy-first from the ground up, built for retailers and law enforcement agencies who refuse to let crime get ahead.
How a major beauty retailer uses Retail Crime Intelligence to power 75% of its reimagined SOC centered on store team safety
OUTCOMES:
15-minute case processing: Analysts move through a basic contact in about 15 minutes, a significant reduction compared to legacy systems.
75% of SOC data is Retail Crime Intelligence: The SOC is fueled by Auror, which helps capture and connect intelligence across stores and cases.
24/7/365 coverage: Continuous operational support for over 1,500 stores and distribution centers.
1.8K case collaborations with law enforcement: The retailer established an open-intelligence sharing model with law enforcement.
A major beauty retailer is redefining modern retail security by uniting people, technology, and intelligence to outsmart organized retail crime (ORC). Facing a post-pandemic landscape where retail crime "looks a lot different," the retailer’s LP team recognized the need for a centralized, intelligence-led operation.
In a move to make human safety and real-time support the top priorities, the team deliberately pivoted from a standard security operations center (SOC) in favor of an associate service center. To support the ambitious undertaking, they looked to Auror’s Retail Crime Intelligence for the strategic foundation of its enterprise-wide security transformation.
The challenges
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the beauty brand observed a shift in retail crime. Repeat people were causing outsized harm and loss in their stores. The median event value among repeat POIs at their stores reached 13X the median US retail event value for repeat POIs.
1 in 5 repeat people of interest display threatening behavior at a major US beauty retailer
Four years ago, their Director of Loss Prevention Intelligence and his senior manager asked themselves a hard question: “how can we best support our associates?” Knowing security intel is only valuable when accuracy and speed build trust across the organization, the pair began designing a new, associate-centric SOC.
Before they could begin the build, the loss prevention (LP) team needed to demonstrate how a security operations model built for associate safety could address the violent escalation of ORC. The biggest challenge: Legacy processes were often reactive, leaving a gap between incident documentation and crime prevention, shared their LP leader:
"We hypothesized [that] if we were to take a security operations model, build associate-centric workflows, and have real-time support capabilities... we could be a real differentiator for the business."
Director of Loss Prevention Intelligence
The solution
The retailer built its SOC by designing 146 unique workflows into a single intake model based on the needs of the stakeholder, ensuring associate safety remained the primary mission. Auror serves as the strategic engine of this operation, providing the simplified incident entry and curated intelligence needed to connect the dots on repeat offenders.
Over four years of tenure, the retailer has leveraged Auror’s Intel, Investigate, and Connect the Dots modules to fuel its security strategy. This gave their Director of LP Intellifence the big-picture view his team needed to create a connected security program:
"Auror has essentially helped us unlock different viewpoints and pictures that we would never have seen without it."
With the success of the SOC predicated on high-quality data from the field, the LP Intelligence Director describes the store team’s adoption of Auror as the strategic engine of the operation. By simplifying incident entry for store associates, the retailer ensures its SOC analysts are working with the best possible intelligence to assist associates.
“Our associates can call into our [SOC] and know that they've got someone 24 over seven on the end of a phone that will help them triage an incident or work through a scenario that they may be unsure of,” shared the retailer’s SVP of Loss Prevention.
The world-class 87.5 Net Promoter Score (NPS) the retail team members gave Auror speaks to that high adoption rate across 1,500+ stores. This remarkable buy-in allows the SOC to act as a force multiplier for the entire organization.
87.5 Auror NPS from major beauty retailer
"Auror is a force multiplier... it multiplies the intelligence by volume and quality because of the way in which we centralize the event intake, and leveraging the tools." - Director of Loss Prevention Intelligence
The results
The integration of Auror has allowed the retailer to turn "information, accuracy, and speed" into the primary currency for building organizational trust.
According to the LP Director, the speed of Auror is a primary driver of ROI. Case processing times have dropped to just 15 minutes, allowing analysts to handle a higher volume of intelligence with fewer people:
“If we had anybody but Auror, with the simplification for incident entry on your event portal, it would take us a lot longer to do it. And every minute inside of a SOC can be quantified down to a P&L.”
Retail crime analysts move through a basic contact in about 15 minutes
In addition to the in value generated through Auror’s Connect the Dots module and the Investigations module, these efficiencies created through the SOC provide a separate, measurable boost to the profit and loss statement (P&L) by freeing store associates to focus on guest conversion rather than tedious administrative reporting. Success is tracked not just through crime reduction, but through their internal "HMD" (How Is My Driving?) survey, which measures the SOC’s cultural and safety impact on the associates it supports.
A major beauty retailer saw a 20% decrease in retail crime with Auror
While the 15-minute case processing time provides a clear financial win, the retailer measures its most significant impact through the lens of its people. The three years with Auror has yielded 50K dot connections at a rate of 1.5K repeat offenders connected per month, leading to a 20% decrease in crime for the beauty retailer.
As their LP Director notes “The most invaluable ROI of all, in my opinion, is helping an associate navigate through a very challenging situation.” This human-centric approach, he emphasized, defines how the business justifies its security investments.
“The true value of a SOC… It’s not measured by how many alerts you’re kicking out and being responded to. It’s measured by how well the program is improving its support for business partners and associates throughout the most challenging moments.”
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
