A deep dive into India’s compliance and labour regulation with Mr Mahesh Krishnamoorthy, Managing Director, Core Integra
1. Brief us about Core Integra & its journey in the Indian markets.
Core Integra was established in 2009 to provide high-quality advisory on labour law compliances, simplifying the compliances for higher adherence by organisations of different sizes and scales and digitalising the compliance processes to enable anywhere-anytime fulfilment by any person who may not necessarily be an expert in the compliances. The objective is to educate the industry on compliance requirements, facilitate the process of being 100% compliant and convert paper to digital format for accurate and timely submissions. In the process, the authorities must have higher transparency, governance and control over industry participants. It has been an exciting journey for us, and we currently service 750+ Clients in 25 industries spread across 1500+ locations pan India.
- You have recently launched your product Ctrl F; how does it reduce the compliance burden for businesses?
CtrlF is not recently launched; it has existed since 2014, but historically we used to offer CtrlF along with services scope. In the last couple of years, we have started offering CtrlF in a SaaS model and have acquired100+ Clients within a short period of launching the SaaS model. CtrlF comprises of a library of all Acts, Laws, Notifications, and Circulars, it’s also a repository for critical documents such as licenses, registrations, notices, and audit reports of an organisation with an auto alert mechanism to avoid missing any critical deadlines. The software generates various registers, returns, filings, and submissions in Central and State formats in English, regional language and bi-lingual modes under Acts and Laws specifically applicable to an organisation. The software can easily integrate with any Client software for seamless and secure data transfer.
You can imagine a scenario where all the above mentioned are in the form of books, paper, and excel sheets which are to be filed and stored for many years in physical format. Management reporting has to be manually done and is time-consuming. To top it all, it will never be known whether the organisation is100% compliant at any time. CtrlF simplifies the entire process with complex information at the fingertips facilitating higher control on compliance adherence.
3.For a long time, the Indian regulatory universe has been a topic of discussion; what is the current level of compliance burden for an industrial establishment?
India indeed has a good number of compliances to be adhered to, and the same information needs to be presented in different formats to different authorities. It is a time-consuming process for registration and regular fulfilment under various Acts and Laws; there is a cost of compliance as well, which is a notable amount irrespective of whether the organisation is in a matured stage of existence or a start-up and regardless of whether it is profitable or not. While Core Integra currently caters to only one part, which is labour law compliance, an organisation must fulfil other compliances such as financial, direct and indirect taxation, secretarial, legal and industry-specific, which requires time, effort, and money, and top it all expertise. Over the last few years, our Government has taken quite a few steps to simplify compliances and make it industry-friendly. In the recent budget speech, the Finance Minister stated that over 39000 compliances had been eased or eliminated, over 3400 penal provisions have been decriminalised, and the focus will continue to ensure ease of business. This gives significant hope to the industry of a bright future for starting new businesses and operating hassle-free.
4.Will the relaxation of labour regulations entice global investors to come to India?
Efficient labour regulation will entice global investors to come to India and encourage many Indians to become entrepreneurs, which is the need of the hour. With approx. 70% of the Indian population being in the working age group in the next decade, India must create more “Employers”. Simplifying and reducing the number of registrations & licenses, a common information portal, reducing the number of periodic filings, and digitalisation of the entire process will help industries adhere to 100% compliance requirements, provide transparency for all stakeholders and lower the cost of compliance significantly. Relaxation and simplification will encourage cross-country partnerships on a larger scale.
- Tell us about your plans for 2023-2024 and whether you intend to expand internationally.
We have significant expansion plans for the coming financial year. The priority is to increase the penetration of CtrlF in domestic markets, for which many initiatives are in the pipeline. There are many product enhancements along with introducing new-age technologies over the next 6-9 months. We are confident of enhancing the relationship with existing Clients across product lines and achieving a three-digit percentage growth in Client acquisition for which the team size on the technology and services side is being scaled. We are also looking forward to opening new offices in India. There are some plans on the international front, but it’s quite early to reveal the same.
