Four years ago, Cowper, a retired career sergeant with Halifax Regional Police, began his second career as manager of loss prevention and enforcement with the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation. Early on, he realized his goal was to help transform the organization’s lagging security department and align it with the overall goals of the NSLC, a Crown corporation governed by a board of directors accountable to the government.

New provincial workplace violence regulations that identified liquor stores as high-risk retail locations would also play a significant role in how Cowper approached the project. “Like all other business entities in the province, we had to come up with a risk assessment plan for all our stores,” he says.

In part, that meant the deployment of networked DVRs to all stores that didn’t currently have them, and integrated work- alone alarm systems. If a clerk is inactive for a certain amount of time the alarm starts to sound on his or her hip and also alerts the NSLC monitoring station located in Halifax. The workplace violence regulation was effective in getting the man-down system approved and in ensuring staff had appropriate training — Armed Robbery Response Training and Responsible Retailing 101, both of which are provided through an online portal created by the NSLC.

Cowper says a large part of the threat the NSLC faces is from internal sources but he says, “A lot of the times it’s not bad people in the organization that get caught, it’s bad things happening to good people. Opportunities present themselves and then it’s easy to slide into a deviant pattern and without detection continue along that pattern.”

Cowper’s department wasn’t the only one undergoing transformation. Recently, roll out of a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software package began along with a new Point of Sale (POS) system that will eventually tie in with the security camera system. There has been a lot to get a handle on — especially with all of these new systems requiring assistance from the IT department.

“My role initially, was to climb up to 20,000 feet and have a good lay of the land,” recalls Cowper. “Add to the mix the whole issue of convergence with IT. All of these security assets, whether it’s access control, case management software, alarm systems and video surveillance that are networked all require assistance from IT and we are still developing what that model will be for convergence with our IT systems.”

Cowper says at the middle-management level, the NSLC is trying to break down those barriers because they work closely together day-to-day. “I have a good relationship with the manager of IT. Within the IT division there’s also the system analyst and those folks have been very busy rolling out the new enterprise resource management software for the corporation. Couple with that a new POS and you start to see the complexity really quickly,” he says.

While the rest of the organization has been pushing ahead with the new ERP system and POS system, Cowper has pushed for the NSLC to look at IP-based networked video recorders as opposed to standalone DVR boxes tied into the network.

With all the other system upgrades happening within the organization, the challenge for Cowper is to get the attention of the IT department and get them to understand that security is a component of the business too. “We require business expertise on the IT side and someone on the IT side who has an understanding of security systems on the IT side. I have a give and take relationship with them. They’re doing the best they can but I really have to try and make a business case to get more help than what I’m getting — maybe after the POS has been rolled out and tested.”

At the NSLC, Cowper is an inspector under the Nova Scotia Liquor Control Act which means he has the powers of a police officer for enforcement of the Act and at the same time responsibility for loss prevention for all of the 108 retail stores and 50 plus agency stores as well as the warehouse and head office complex in Halifax.

When Cowper arrived at the NSLC a five-year plan was under development for the organization, but security wasn’t yet a core component of that plan.

“A lot was happening as a result of need within the organization,” says Cowper. “Aged technology was coming to the end of its lifespan, and it was time to look at overhauling all systems.”

There was also an absence of any case management system within the security department and that was unacceptable. There was a reporting system, but not a comprehensive one. Coming from law enforcement, Cowper views a case management system as a tool necessary to properly capture statistical information, but beyond that, making it useful as a measurement tool to develop a proper metric.

The video surveillance assets in the stores and the distribution centre were also failing to produce the kind of information Cowper wanted. Up-to-date access control/key control at the store level and in the distribution centre and head office were needed and the alarm systems were in place but they were in serious need of an upgrade and a plan in terms of how they were to be managed.

“It had to be a vision shared with the units we work directly with and report to and with a more global view,” says Cowper. “As a service within a corporation of this size, we have to tie ourselves very closely to exactly what the business is. I’m mindful of that on a daily basis.”

The NSLC has its own monitoring centre staffed by the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires. They also serve as security in the warehouse and at the head office. But Cowper is reviewing the technology in the monitoring centre. “We’ve got some black and white monitors and some colour monitors — 48 all in one room and they are tiered. From a functional and ergonomic perspective they just don’t fit with the direction we’re going,” he says.

Cowper’s focus to date has largely been on  the video surveillance upgrades. The NSLC had a lot of old time-lapse VCRs and minimal cameras deployed in the stores. They had already started down the path of putting DVRs in place but they were a lot were first-generation DVRs.

“We knew that our video surveillance strategy at the time was not effective,” says Cowper.

The NSLC started by upgrading all stores across the province — about six-to-12 stores a year and every new or renovated store was factored into the new security blueprint. 

“That was the impetus for us to move forward and come up with a business case to retrofit the other stores and inside the distribution centre where we did not have sufficient video surveillance assets. The distribution centre is the size of six football fields — all put together about 35-40 feet high — so it’s a large complex to protect in terms of exit doors all over the place,” says Cowper.

“There wasn’t a real plan to have one vendor, one system — one system that was a standard to allow us to train to one piece of software, one solution,” says Cowper. 

At the time the NSLC had about half a dozen different DVR manufacturers in use and it was distributing, depending on what stores were being built at the time, different DVRs. “It made absolutely no sense at all,” says Cowper. “We standardized on one DVR manufacturer and looked at it in the context of its lifespan. How far down the road will we be able to go with it and will we be able to do things like POS integration and can we get these devices on a network?”

NSLC chose to go with hardware from Dartmouth-based Pace Setter Technologies. Right now, in the 108-store network, 70 per cent have the Pace Setter DVR. “The question for us is, do we continue and use it for the other 30 per cent of our stores or do we look at another technology?”

In addition to walking into an environment with disparate technology systems, when Cowper took the helm the security system integrator working with NSLC was Eastern Vault & Security of Dartmouth, but it was later purchased by Frisco Bay and then Stanley Security, creating change at that level as well.

When it came to upgrading the access control systems key control was something Cowper wanted to look at but the upgrade was also driven in terms of workplace violence regulations. Many of the older stores hadn’t been renovated and in some circumstances didn’t have a secure door in a place where cash counting is performed, where the safe is or where management work. Cowper standardized on door closures and placed pin pad locks on doors, thereby creating an audit trail to determine how often those doors are used.

“In the head office and distribution centre we had started down the road of access control but hadn’t finalized where it would go,” says Cowper. “The project involved getting the proper swipe stations in place at all key bottlenecks and front door and employee entrances and locking down the distribution centre in terms of who has access.

“I don’t see us as being much different than our friends on the marine transport side of security in terms of the accreditation required to know who is in our building at what time,” says Cowper.

For the alarm system upgrade, much like video surveillance, the goal was to get on one platform, one standard — in this case, DSC panels in the stores.

In upgrading the case management system the NSLC chose Edmonton-based PPM 2000 and its Perspective product with the eReporting module which is an electronic incident form provided over the company’s Intranet. “Accepted” incidents move directly into Perspective for further investigation. “We’ve had it for more than a year but incident reports are still being done by some stores in a Word document and we’re getting them via fax. We’re trying to wean them off the fax  and onto email but we still have some who want to print it out.”

Overall, Cowper says his department’s role is to support the corporation in strategic business areas, do it in a fun and safe environment and making shopping at the NSLC a great experience. However, he must also keep in mind return on investment.

“The underlying principle is: Where’s the cost effectiveness? How do I make this cost effective because I will be asked where is the return?”