What Does the Future of Convenience Retail Look Like?
AI built over quality data can help c-stores with everything from getting ahead of turnover to reducing food waste to creating personalized offers.
Jul 10, 2026 | 2 min read
This is a Q&A with Amit Sreedharan, Business Head Energy – Europe and MEA – Energy, Services and Government at Infosys.
What are the barriers to entry for small and mid-sized operators when it comes to leveraging data to improve operations?
Amit Sreedharan: Smaller operators can be incredibly effective in creating a strong, personal affinity with their customers. They know what their customers like and dislike (often on a personal level) and can react quickly to changing tastes and needs. These mom-and-pop operations represent the core of the industry and its entrepreneurial heart.
Just five years ago, many smaller operators couldn’t afford the software or hardware, meaning they had little to no integration between the fuel controller, the POS system and the back office—and thus almost no data. Today, a 10-store operator can stand up back-office analytics, digital ordering and a loyalty program in a single quarter. The only barriers we presently see are data quality and retailers’ understanding of the availability of affordable and scalable IT systems.
At Infosys, we work with everyone from the largest fuel retailers to true mom-and-pop shops. As AI adoption accelerates, it is redefining how individuals and organizations operate. Those who remain aware and adaptive will be best positioned to harness its full potential.
How has AI impacted these barriers to entry?
Amit: Thanks to pretrained AI models, small operators don’t need a data science team to do demand forecasting. Software as a service (SaaS) vendors are embedding AI into the workflows that operators already run. Vendor invoice reconciliation, labor scheduling that predicts traffic by daypart and assigns shifts automatically, planogram compliance via a phone camera—all of these are in production today, sometimes without the operator even knowing they’re using AI.
But there are new barriers. The first is data quality. Most small operators run on fragmented systems, and without basic data integration, smarter models don’t deliver.
Five years ago, the question was money. Today the question is judgment.
Continue reading “The Future of Convenience Fuel Retail” in the July 2026 issue of NACS Magazine.
