TeamLease Regtech hosted another engaging compliance roundtable with industry leaders, regulatory experts, and professionals from various sectors to discuss the complex regulatory landscape. The discussion focused on real-world challenges, practical solutions, and emerging trends shaping governance and risk management.
Complexity at Scale
As India aims to become the fourth-largest global economy, the country’s regulatory environment remains dense. A single-state enterprise must meet over 780 requirements and complete more than 12,200 activities annually. For multi-state or regulated businesses, the scale is far greater, with over 1,536 laws and 6,618 filings. With 500–600 regulatory changes annually for mid-sized companies, often scattered across 376 government websites, staying compliant is a monumental task.
Only a small fraction of the 63 million enterprises in India are formally registered. Many MSMEs stay small because scaling up invites a flood of compliance obligations. With growth comes inspections and multiple regulators, often leaving business owners overwhelmed and distracted from operations.
Key Takeaways from the Roundtable
The discussion brought some best practices and solutions to the table from various experiences. One of the starting points was to achieve smarter compliance in today’s complex regulatory landscape, organisations must adopt a strategic and proactive approach that integrates compliance into their core operations and culture. This can begin with institutionalising a comprehensive compliance program by establishing a centralised framework that maps all applicable regulations and translates them into actionable processes. One compliance representative from a re-commerce organisation focused on conducting periodic risk assessments to identify legal exposures and business-critical areas, ensuring resources are allocated efficiently. Also, clear accountability of the responsible personnel is essential, so assign ownership and build cross-functional teams to define roles, foster collaboration, and prevent handoff failures across departments.
The rising role of technology was a larger part of the discussion. It was observed that organisations should use compliance tech for automation and monitoring, employing tools to automate filings, track deadlines, and provide real-time alerts, as manual tracking is no longer sustainable. Strengthening vendor and outsourcing oversight by auditing vendors, enforcing contractual obligations, and holding them accountable for statutory liabilities was deemed equally important. Ensuring audit-readiness, maintaining robust documentation and records by digitising and indexing filings, licenses, and communications is important for continuity and transparency.
Proactive governance requires conducting regular audits and reviews through internal audits and mock inspections to detect gaps early and demonstrate commitment to compliance. One professional suggested that building capability across the organisation is vital which can be acheived by training and sensitising employees and leadership with department-specific training and awareness sessions to embed compliance muscle. Compliance must also align with business evolution, so integrate compliance with business change management by involving legal and compliance teams early in mergers, expansions.
One representative mentioned how beneficial it can be to embed compliance in values, KPIs, and rewarding transparency. This would help imbibe a culture of compliance within the organisation. Additionally, a centralized compliance repository or dashboard can provide a single source of truth for tracking obligations, ownership, deadlines, and progress, enhancing leadership visibility. To stay ahead, a mechanism to actively monitor upcoming regulatory changes, industry advisories, and government consultations, enabling anticipatory planning rather than reactive responses can be developed to stay on top of compliance.
Leadership accountability is non-negotiable. Ensure top leadership accountability by including compliance KPIs in senior leadership scorecards and formalizing board oversight through periodic reviews. To drive continuous improvement, benchmark against industry peers and global standards, using compliance maturity models to identify gaps and elevate practices can take the compliance level to the next level. Compliance should also inform high-level decisions, so embed compliance in strategic decision-making for strategy formulation, capital allocation, and market entry. To justify investments, monitor compliance costs and ROI, tracking expenses and the value of penalties avoided to demonstrate business impact. Finally, promote regulatory relationship management by building transparent, proactive ties with regulators through industry consultations, feedback loops, and voluntary disclosures, positioning the organization as a trusted partner in regulatory ecosystems.
Trends Reshaping the Compliance Landscape
Key trends like ESG, data security and privacy and decriminalisation were highlighted during the discussion. ESG considerations are transitioning from optional to essential. Investors and stakeholders now view ethical governance and transparency as critical factors in business decision-making. Transparency and ethical governance are now among the asks both from the regulator and different stakeholders. Cybersecurity and data privacy, especially post the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, have become board-level concerns, aligning India with global frameworks like the GDPR. Decriminalisation is gaining ground through the Jan Vishwas Act and the upcoming Jan Vishwas 2.0, aiming to reduce jail terms for procedural lapses. Compliance has also moved into the boardroom, with directors dedicating full sessions to risk oversight, signaling a shift from a backend function to a strategic imperative.
Challenges at Hand
Participants highlighted several recurring pain points that hinder effective compliance. A key issue is the lack of awareness that many employees, including senior leaders, are unclear about their compliance obligations, leaving the responsibility to isolated officers. There are thousands of websites on both national and state levels with impractical UI/UX interfaces where the notifications are difficult to find, which adds to the burden of compliance teams. Another challenge is the applicability of these notifications, circulars, updates, which come from different regulators without specifying their exact application. The process of compliance is often treated as a siloed function, despite its cross-functional nature. Inter-state operations are also hindered due to differeing compliance requirements. Outdated laws compound the problem; over 37.5% of business-related laws include imprisonment clauses, with some still penalizing trivial infractions like failing to whitewash walls or maintain spittoons. Manual, spreadsheet-driven processes remain common, leading to accidental rather than intentional compliance. As government systems digitize, defaults are now flagged quickly and backed by data, increasing pressure on businesses. Without clear ownership, collaboration, or structured systems, companies are left vulnerable to gaps, scrutiny, and penalties.
Reflections: On Culture, Accountability, and the Road Ahead
Participants called out state-level inconsistencies, slow validation processes, and weak awareness at the operational level. While technology plays a crucial role, cultural and leadership shifts are essential for meaningful compliance transformation.
Key recommendations included:
For the Government: Standardise rules across states, eliminate redundant updates, and simplify documentation.
Within organisations: Make compliance a part of KPIs, monthly reviews, and cross-functional engagement.
As an Industry: Share best practices, build peer communities, and reframe compliance as a value driver.
The Road Ahead
India’s compliance maze is complex but navigable. With a dedicated effort from the leadership, regulatory simplification, and smart technology adoption, compliance can evolve from a cost center into a competitive advantage. The discussion reinforced that compliance isn’t just about avoiding penalties, it's about building resilient, responsible, and future-ready businesses.