Store operations

Retail Execution Software in India: Categories, Vendors and What to Ask on a Demo

By Borentis Research · Store operations · Updated 30 September 2026 · 11 min read

Retail execution software in India falls into four categories that are often quoted against each other but do different jobs: store operations platforms that check whether the store is set up and run to standard, conversation intelligence that checks whether the floor sold to the playbook, footfall analytics that count who walked in and where they went, and field-force apps that manage a brand's or distributor's representatives visiting other people's stores. A brand with its own showrooms or exclusive brand outlets usually needs the first two and can borrow from the third; a general trade brand needs the fourth. This guide maps the categories using the vendors' public positioning only, shows how the scores connect on one store scorecard, and lists the questions to ask on a demo before any of them is bought.

The four categories in one table

Category	What it measures	Unit of execution	Who buys it	Pricing unit, as published
Store operations platforms	Whether the store was opened, dressed, cleaned, staffed and closed to standard, with photo proof	The store and its zones: facade, window, mannequins, display cars, billing counter	Retail operations, VM, area managers, dealer principals	Per store or per location; some tiered
Conversation intelligence	Whether the floor sold to the playbook: greeting, need, demo, offer, objection, close	The consented sales conversation	Sales, training, brand, network performance	Per store or per advisor
Footfall analytics	How many people entered, when, where they dwelt, sometimes demographics	The visit	Marketing, real estate, operations	Per camera or per store
Field-force apps	Whether representatives visited, ordered and audited in other people's stores	The visit to a retailer or the beat	Sales operations, trade marketing, distribution	Per user

Store operations platforms

This is the category most Indian brands mean when they say retail execution. The shape is common across vendors: checklists with photos, scored audits and store visit reports, image AI that reads a store photo, tickets with SLA escalation, approvals, broadcast, documents, training and role dashboards on a phone that works offline. Wooqer positions itself as "The WorkApp" for retail, restaurants, banking and manufacturing with a large template marketplace and location-based pricing. Pazo's line is "Click. Capture. Comply.", with live-photo capture, an AI validator and hierarchy escalation for retail, malls and facility management, priced in custom tiers. Amply serves retail, restaurants and hospitality with an SOP builder, tickets, approvals, broadcast, a document wallet, image AI, an AI daily email and public per-store pricing with a free starter for two stores. All three are described here from their public pages only.

BorentisOps is the fourth, built only for own showrooms and exclusive brand outlets, with Drishti trained on the brand's dockets rather than on a general store, Hindi, English and Hinglish on the floor, per-store pricing, and the operations score read next to the selling score. The row-by-row comparison is at /learn/borentisops-vs-wooqer-vs-pazo-vs-amply/ and the buying guide for the category at /learn/store-operations-software-for-retail-chains-india/.

Conversation intelligence for stores

Conversation intelligence captures the sales conversation on the advisor's phone with the customer's consent, transcribes it in the language the floor speaks, and scores it against the brand's playbook: was the customer greeted, was the need asked, was the demo done, was this month's offer quoted correctly, which objection ended the conversation, which competitor was named, was the number taken. It is the only category that measures selling rather than the conditions for selling. Borentis Floor is the Borentis product in this category, in Hindi, English and Hinglish; the wider vendor set and how they differ is mapped at /learn/in-store-conversation-intelligence-vendors-map/.

The category has a legal and cultural dimension the others do not: consent signage and wording, DPDP obligations, and how advisors are told the recordings are used for coaching rather than discipline. Buyers should read /learn/is-recording-customers-legal-in-india-retail/ before a demo, and ask every vendor how consent is captured and how a customer can decline.

Footfall analytics and field-force apps

Footfall analytics uses cameras or sensors at the entrance to count visits, sometimes dwell by zone and demographics. It supplies the denominator for conversion and shows whether a slow day was empty or busy and unconverted. It cannot say why a customer left, which is the limit set out at /learn/conversation-intelligence-vs-cctv-footfall-analytics/. Borentis does not sell a counter today; camera-based footfall and visit signals are on the roadmap, and a brand with an existing counter can bring its numbers to the scorecard through the API.

Field-force apps manage representatives who visit stores the brand does not own: beat plans, order capture, visit proof and shelf photos in general trade and modern trade. Bizom and FieldAssist, as their sites describe them, are the Indian names most often quoted here. Their vocabulary is the shelf, the facing and the planogram, which is the one place this guide uses those words: they are the right words for a distributor's representative and the wrong ones for a brand's own showroom. A brand with both its own EBOs and a general trade business will usually run one tool from each category, and should not expect either to do the other's job.

General-trade SFA and field-force apps versus own-store execution platforms

The two categories most often confused on a shortlist are the field-force app and the store operations platform, because both are sold as retail execution software and both put a photo on a phone. They are built for different buildings. A field-force app is built for a representative who does not work in the store he is photographing; a store operations platform is built for the manager who opens that store every morning. The definition of the discipline, and the two halves it splits into, is set out at /learn/what-is-retail-execution/. The table holds the two categories against each other on the dimensions a buyer feels in the first month, using the vendors' public positioning only; none of it is a hands-on test.

Dimension	General-trade SFA and field-force apps	Own-store execution platforms
Built for	A brand's or distributor's representatives visiting kiranas, chemists, supermarkets and modern trade aisles the brand does not own	The brand's own store managers, floor staff, VM leads and area managers inside showrooms and exclusive brand outlets
Unit of work	The outlet visit on a beat: arrive, check the shelf, take the order, photograph, move on	The store day: opening checklist, mid-day recovery, tasks from head office, closing, plus the area manager's audit visit
What the photo proves	That the product is on the shelf at the planogram position with the right facings and the scheme visible; image recognition counts SKUs and facings	That the facade, window, mannequins, display cars, demo units, accessories wall and billing counter match the docket; the model compares elements to the brand's reference
Revenue link	Secondary order capture inside the app, so sales and execution sit in one record because the representative takes the order	No order is taken; the revenue link is walk-in conversion from the POS and, where captured, the sales conversation on the floor
Tasks and escalation	Beat compliance, visit productivity and outlet coverage; misses roll up to the area sales manager	A ticket per failed item with a named owner and an SLA clock; escalation to the area and regional managers
Training and communication	Scheme briefs and product notes pushed to the field; quizzes in some tools	Broadcast, documents, launch readiness quizzes and huddle notes on the same phone as the checklist
Compliance items	MRP and scheme terms at the shelf edge, POSM placement	Legal Metrology MRP display, GST invoice, fire NOC, Shops and Establishments registration, DPDP recording notice where conversations are captured
Who reads the dashboard	National sales head, area sales managers, trade marketing; the distributor sees his own outlets	Retail operations head, VM head, area managers, dealer principals and franchise owners; the store manager sees his own store
Offline and language	Offline order capture is standard; interface languages vary by vendor	Offline checklists for basements and mall dead zones; Hindi, English and Hinglish on the floor at BorentisOps, as its page states; others vary
Pricing unit, as published	Per user, the representative, with distributor modules priced separately	Per store or per location; some in tiers
Indian names, from public pages	Bizom and FieldAssist; GoSpotCheck by FORM globally	BorentisOps for own showrooms and EBOs; Wooqer, Pazo and Amply for mixed formats
Where it fails if bought for the other	Asked to run an EBO's opening routine it produces a shelf audit of a store with no shelves and no order to take	Asked to cover a distributor's beat it has no order capture, no outlet master and no way to count facings

Which side of the line you are on

The test is not the industry but the payroll. If the person who executes in the store is on your payroll, or on a franchisee's payroll working to your standard, you are an own-store network: the store operations platform is your category, with conversation intelligence for the selling half. If the person who executes is a distributor's salesman or your own representative visiting someone else's store, you are a general trade business and the field-force app is your category. A consumer durables or mobile brand that runs exclusive outlets and also sells through multi-brand retailers is both, and will run one tool from each category; the promoters it places at multi-brand counters are a third case, measured as at /learn/promoter-performance-tracking-for-brands/.

Vendors on both sides will say they can do the other. Read the vocabulary on the product page before the demo: planogram, facings, share of shelf and secondary sales is a field-force app whatever the headline says; checklist, audit, docket, ticket and store manager is an operations platform. BorentisOps is on the own-store side only: Drishti scores a store phone photo of a window, a display bay or a counter against the brand's docket, it does not count facings, and it is not for general trade shelves. A general trade brand should read the Bizom and FieldAssist pages first.

The confusion costs more than a wasted demo. A chain that buys a field-force app for its EBOs ends up with an outlet master that lists its own stores as customers and a shelf score for a window; within a quarter the store managers stop filling it in and the area managers go back to WhatsApp. A general trade brand that buys an operations platform gets excellent checklists for stores it cannot enter. Neither vendor is at fault; the buyer read the wrong half of a shared name.

How the scores connect on one store scorecard

The useful view is one card per store with the operations score from the store operations platform, the selling score from conversation intelligence, and footfall as the denominator, read together by the area manager and the regional head. A store with clean audits and low playbook adherence gets a coach. A store that sells well with a poor window gets the VM team. A store with low footfall and high conversion gets the marketing conversation, not another audit. Read separately, each score sends the wrong person to the store.

BorentisOps and Borentis Floor share the scorecard by design; operations scores from another platform, footfall from an existing counter and the brand's CRM connect through the API, described at /solutions/products/borentisops/integrations/. Borentis feeds the brand's CRM rather than replacing it, and nothing is sent to a customer automatically; follow-ups are drafted for a person to read and send. The product page is at /solutions/products/borentisops/.

What to ask on a demo

Which of the four categories is this, and which does it not do? A vendor who claims all four is describing a roadmap.
Show me the verdict on my ten store photos, five compliant and five with faults I know about. For a footfall vendor, show me the count against my manual tally for one hour.
Run the store manager's morning checklist in Hinglish with mobile data off, on a phone that costs under ten thousand rupees.
Raise one ticket from a failed item and show the escalation to the area manager and the regional head with the SLA clock.
What is the all-in price per store per month for my store count, including image AI and dashboards, and what is the year two price?
How does your score reach one card with the other categories' scores? Show the API, not a slide.
For conversation intelligence: how is consent captured, how does a customer decline, and where is the audio stored and for how long?
What happens to my data, audit history and photos when I leave? Ask for export as PDF and CSV in the contract.

A shortlist by situation

Restaurant, bank, manufacturer or mall operator: a store operations platform with templates for your format, Wooqer or Pazo as their sites describe them.
A young retail chain of a handful of stores that wants public pricing and a same-day start: Amply.
A general trade or modern trade brand with representatives visiting retailers: a field-force app, Bizom or FieldAssist as their sites describe them, and conversation intelligence for promoters at the counter if the brand has them, at /learn/promoter-performance-tracking-for-brands/.
A brand with its own showrooms or exclusive brand outlets in India that wants operations and selling on one scorecard, in Hindi, English and Hinglish, per store: BorentisOps with Borentis Floor.
A brand already on a store operations platform that wants the selling side: Borentis Floor alone, with the operations score joined through the API.

Frequently asked questions

What is retail execution software?

Software that checks whether what head office planned actually happened in the store. In India the term covers four categories: store operations platforms for checklists, photo audits and tickets; conversation intelligence for whether the floor sold to the playbook; footfall analytics for who walked in; and field-force apps for representatives visiting other people's stores. Most buyers need one or two, not all four.

Which category does an exclusive brand outlet network need?

A store operations platform first, because the docket, the opening checklist and the audit are the daily work, and conversation intelligence second, because an EBO that passes every audit and misses target is a selling problem the audit cannot see. Footfall is useful as a denominator if a counter already exists. A field-force app is for stores the brand does not own.

Can one vendor cover all four categories?

Not today, and be cautious of anyone who says so. Borentis covers store operations through BorentisOps and the sales conversation through Borentis Floor on one scorecard; camera-based footfall and visit signals are on its roadmap, and it does not do field-force for general trade. Wooqer, Pazo and Amply cover operations; Bizom and FieldAssist cover field force, as their sites describe.

How is retail execution software priced in India?

Store operations platforms price per store or per location, some in tiers; conversation intelligence per store or per advisor; footfall per camera or per store; field-force apps per user. The only comparable number is the all-in figure per store per month for your store count with every module included, and the year two price in writing. Ask every vendor for exactly that.

Where Borentis applies this

Execution Scorecards: See the floor before the P&L does.
Playbook Adherence: Your playbook, finally observed.
Launch & Offer Execution: Know your launch landed, on day one.

Borentis is the Agentic Operating System for Customer Interactions, built for Indian retail floors: consented one-tap capture on the advisor's phone, every conversation scored against your playbook with the evidence behind every number, leads created when a number is heard, and coaching from your own best conversations.

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