Q & A: Ben Collier, co-founder, Ocasta

Ben Collier is co-founder at Ocasta, the frontline operations platform helping retailers reduce guesswork across stores and head office. Ocasta is a frontline operations platform that helps retailers remove that guesswork, so teams on the ground know what to do in the moment and leaders can see what is really happening.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?

I started the business in 2011 as an app development consultancy, building apps for businesses with specific problems to solve. Early on, we worked with brands including Virgin Media, which gave us a strong grounding in mobile technology as that market was taking off.

The turning point came around 2014, when we began working with a retail operations team that wanted to move away from printed manuals and an old back-office setup, and put the right knowledge onto an iPad for frontline teams. That project opened my eyes to a much bigger problem. Frontline teams were often using worse technology at work than they had in their personal lives.

That led me to shift the business towards a product. But I kept the same consultancy mindset – what we call software, with a service. We still build from real customer needs rather than guessing what might be useful. My co-founder Ed Moore also brings strong retail experience as the former CTO of Carphone Warehouse, and I had my own retail sales background before Ocasta, so we have always looked at this from both sides.

What does your company do? / What is your USP?

There’s too much guesswork in retail. Not just in-store, but back at head office as well. Ocasta is a frontline operations platform that helps retailers remove that guesswork, so teams on the ground know what to do in the moment and leaders can see what is really happening.

For frontline teams, that means knowing the next right thing to do through targeted comms and task management, having instant access to knowledge, and reinforcing that knowledge through microlearning. For head office, it means being able to see what has actually happened through tasks, audits, store visits, observations, coaching activity, and analytics.

Our USP is that we do not treat these as separate problems. Most businesses still split frontline performance across comms, learning, compliance, and operations. The frontline does not experience work in silos. It happens in moments. We bring those moments together in one platform so retailers can stop guessing and start knowing.

What’s special about the platform and your approach?

What I know makes Ocasta different is that it is built around frontline reality, not head-office assumptions. A lot of software aimed at frontline teams still feels like it was made for people sitting at a desk all day. That is not how the frontline works.

We combine five connected hubs: internal comms and task management, knowledge and learning, inspections and checklists, observation and coaching, and new starter support. Each works on its own, but they become more powerful together. A communication can become a task. A store visit can generate actions. An observation can highlight a skill gap and trigger the right coaching.

That matters because a lot of frontline communications are really a task in disguise. If a poster is wrong, a process has changed, or a pricing issue needs fixing, the business does not just need to tell people. It needs to know what happened next.

What advantage does it add?

The biggest advantage, for me, is that it moves leaders from chasing to knowing.

Before Ocasta, an operations leader might send an email to every location, follow up manually, and still not know what was done. With Ocasta, they can send one targeted task, see completion in real time, and review photo evidence where needed. Instead of chasing everyone, they manage the exceptions.

That leads to faster execution, less rework, better compliance, stronger customer experience, and more confidence at the frontline. It also gives head office evidence instead of anecdotes.

What does a product/service implementation actually look like and how do you measure success?

A successful implementation starts with one clear use case. I have learned not to try to roll out everything at once. I usually like to begin with a specific operational problem – for example, store communications not landing, audits being managed across spreadsheets, or a lack of visibility into skill gaps.

From there, we configure the right hub or combination of hubs around that need, set up the workflows and reporting, and do a lot of the heavy lifting to get customers live quickly. We are fully self-service once customers are up and running, but we do not want the platform to become something they never have time to set up.

I measure success in operational terms. Depending on the use case, that might include a blend of message read rates, task completion, fewer repeat issues, stronger audit scores, more coaching activity, or higher engagement. The real test is whether the business is making better decisions and getting things right the first time.

How are retailers using your systems to gain competitive advantage and what does best practice look like?

I see retailers use Ocasta in a few different ways, but the advantage comes from the same place: less guesswork, faster action, and better visibility.

One use case is operational execution. A pricing or POS issue, for example, should not sit in email chains with no clear ownership. With Ocasta, that becomes a trackable task with real-time completion and evidence, so teams can act quickly and head office can see what has happened. That is where I tend to see fewer repeat issues, stronger audit scores, and much better engagement with operational comms.

Another is coaching and capability. Regional managers and store leaders can observe real interactions, score them against an ideal journey, and coach in the moment. That gives the frontline immediate feedback, and it gives head office a much clearer view of which skills are strong across the estate and which need more attention. That is where I have seen 3x increases in upselling and customer satisfaction improvements of up to 51%.

Best practice is not treating those things as isolated activities. The strongest retailers use the platform to make work clearer in the moment, while also building a better picture of performance over time. Across our customers, I have seen 72% fewer issues found, audit scores move from around 70% into the 90s, 94% of operational comms being read, and more than 90% workforce engagement.

Are there other companies you partner with?

We are constantly broadening the platform because app fatigue is real on the frontline. I am always interested in partnerships that reduce complexity for customers and make frontline execution easier, whether that is specialist headset providers that help teams get instant answers, workforce management tools for scheduling, or productivity experts such as ReThink.

That is important because frontline teams do not need more fragmentation. The value comes from making the frontline stack simpler, more connected, and more useful in the moment.

What challenges and opportunities do you see in UK retail for 2026?

Retailers have far less room for error than they did a few years ago. Margins are tighter, labour is more expensive, compliance is heavier, and operations change faster. On top of that, customer expectations are rising. As AI makes digital experiences faster and more personalised, the human experience in store matters even more.

That creates both a challenge and an opportunity. Small operational failures now show up quickly in cost, customer experience, or risk. At the same time, retailers that execute well at the frontline can create a real advantage, because every customer interaction matters more when spend is under pressure.

For me, that is what operational excellence now comes down to –  consistent execution in the moments that matter.

How will you address these challenges and turn them into successes?

Our role is to help businesses remove guesswork from those everyday moments.

We do that by connecting communication, knowledge, tasks, inspections, observations, and coaching in one operational layer. That means frontline teams can get the right answer and the right action at the moment they need it, while head office gets visibility back on what is working, what is not, and where support is needed next.

The retailers that will win are the ones that stop treating frontline performance as a set of disconnected problems and start managing it as one joined-up discipline. That is exactly the shift Ocasta supports.

What does good frontline performance actually look like in retail today?

For me, it is consistent execution without second guessing. Teams know what has changed, what good looks like, and how to act in the moment.

That means strong operational execution, clear accountability, and coaching that improves performance over time.

Where do retailers lose the most time and money through guesswork?

Usually in small failures repeated at scale. An email goes out, but nobody knows who has acted on it. A task gets communicated, but not tracked. A store issue gets reported, but the follow-up is manual. Training is delivered, but the real skill gap is somewhere else.

That is where waste, rework, inconsistency, and missed opportunities build up across an estate.

What is on the horizon for you as a company?

I am focused on bringing the five hubs even closer together so the platform removes more friction automatically. If a policy changes, we want to suggest the checklist or actions needed to put it into practice. If an observation uncovers a skill gap, we want to make it easier to turn that into the right coaching and learning straight away.

We have already introduced AI-powered answers, and I see a big opportunity to use intelligence across the platform in practical ways that help retailers act faster.

More broadly, my ambition is to help define a new category around frontline performance. Less about the work, and more about the outcome.

Any final thoughts?

Frontline performance is not driven by systems. It is driven by moments.

If the person in that moment has the right knowledge, the right action, and a clear understanding of what good looks like, performance improves. If they do not, guesswork fills the gap. That is the problem I believe we are solving.

………………………………………………………………

To see how Ocasta helps retailers improve operational excellence, reduce guesswork, and give frontline teams the knowledge to perform in every moment, visit ocasta.com or find them at the Retail Technology Show 2026, stand E40.