Northgate González Deploys POS Video Auditing Solution

Northgate González Markets, a chain of family-owned grocery stores located throughout Southern California, has deployed a new point of sale video auditing service across its 32 stores in an effort to efficiently identify and cut losses at the POS chain-wide.

The grocer is using the Hawkeye solution from Camden, N.J.-based Agilence. “Agilence’s technology helps us identify the causes of losses that are substantial but difficult to detect immediately with other solutions,” stated Jesus Gonzalez, VP of operations, Northgate González. “We identified areas where these sizeable, previously unknown losses were occurring as a result of operational and training issues as well as fraud. Hawkeye not only uncovers these hidden issues, but also acts as a great training tool to show employees where they can improve.”

Agilence has already identified several costly activities that Northgate González was unaware existed. In one case, the grocer found that cashiers were removing produce from the weighing scale too quickly, resulting in a 30 percent loss on average. Additionally, Agilence enabled Northgate González to identify several internal fraud incidents. Because these incidents were smaller dollar amounts rather than large sums all at once, the grocer’s previous solution was unable to detect these thefts.

Agilence’s POS Video Auditing software, Hawkeye, pulls data directly from the POS system and marries the data with video in real-time. Each individual item scan and key punch within a transaction is perfectly linked to its associated video image. This synchronized view is combined with a powerful query tool that allows retailers to view similar transactions from the entire chain in a single screen. As a result, analysts can see the losses occur in near real-time. This unprecedented access can enable analysts to view and investigate up to 50 times more transactions than traditional tools.