By Vibhore Goyal, Founder, OneBanc
Introduction
If you can automate payments, why is compliance so complex and tedious?
In an economy racing towards real-time finance, seamless tax filings, and AI-driven decisions, corporate governance cannot remain stuck in manual mode. With over 1,536 Acts and 69,233 compliance requirements in India alone (TeamLease RegTech, 2024), relying on human memory, trackers, and emails, no matter how optimised, is no longer sustainable. Intelligent automation—through AI, machine learning, and advanced process automation—is no longer a luxury. For CHROs, CEOs, and CFOs, it’s a lever for risk reduction, cost optimisation, resilience, and strategic advantage.
From Paper Trails to Intelligent Systems
India’s compliance evolution began with MCA21 and GSTN digitisation efforts in the 2000s, but most progress remained surface-level. The real shift came with firms like JPMorgan Chase, using COIN, saved 360,000 hours of legal review time (McKinsey, 2018)—equivalent to tens of millions of dollars in overheads avoided. Today, Indian leaders like Digio, TeamLease and OneBanc are showing that intelligent automation—not digitisation—is the only sustainable model for modern governance.
Strategic HR Realignment: Beyond Admin, Towards P&L
Is your team spending their best energy on compliance paperwork—or on building the business?
For CHROs, automation is not just a cost story. It is a human productivity story. Automation systems now handle PF/ESI filings, flag labour compliance gaps, and monitor regulatory changes (Gartner, 2024), freeing HR bandwidth for initiatives that move the P&L needle—like retention, engagement, and capability building.
More importantly, automation changes the learning curve. Instead of employees slogging through mechanical filings, automation gives them a 30,000-foot strategic view of compliance—training them to spot risks, think proactively, and ideate better governance practices. This shift elevates both employee satisfaction and organisational value.
Adoption is not the news. Impact is. When HR bandwidth is repurposed to strategic workforce development, the company doesn’t just become compliant—it becomes sharper, faster, and more future-ready
Governance as a Strategic Weapon
When was the last time a compliance miss cost you more than a growth delay?
Today’s CEOs operate under enormous regulatory pressure. As a CEO myself, I share truest empathies. According to World Economic Forum (2024), regulatory changes and disclosure requirements have doubled in the last five years globally. In India, penalties for compliance breaches under DPDPA can reach ₹250 crore—enough to materially impact quarterly results (Ministry of Electronics and IT, 2023).
Automation doesn’t just prevent fines. It provides real-time dashboards that give CEOs visibility into open risks, gaps, and regulatory status across the enterprise—so issues can be pre-empted, not post-mortemed. When JPMorgan deployed COIN, it wasn’t just about cutting 99% of errors—it was about creating an operational advantage, where manual fatigue was eliminated and legal risk shrunk dramatically (McKinsey, 2018).
Boards today increasingly expect automation, especially after SEBI and RBI publicly pushed for tech-enabled compliance. However, many Boards are still cautious about spend. Winning them over means showing tested use cases, tangible savings, and clear frameworks on governance oversight. Leading CEOs are reframing automation not as a cost, but as a governance moat that protects market value.
The CFO’s New Playbook
Is your compliance cost predictable or is it a hidden liability waiting to hit your P&L?
Manual compliance consumes an average of 16+ hours weekly (PwC, 2023), not including the hidden costs of late filings, errors, or missed updates.
Intelligent automation flattens these costs, turning fixed overhead into elastic, volume-aligned operating expenses. For CFOs, the math is simple:
Cost of automation stack < Cost of penalties + Cost of human error + Cost of opportunity lost to manual work.
Audit trails, real-time validations, fallback systems—all become embedded in the operating fabric, not afterthoughts. In a world where financial reporting is increasingly tied to non-financial compliance (cybersecurity, ESG, data privacy), CFOs must lead this shift—not trail it.
Volatility, ESG, and Global Mandates
According to TeamLease RegTech (2024), India saw over 9,000+ compliance updates last year.
Imagine the manual effort needed to chase these changes while your competitors focus on growth.
Automation turns this noise into manageable workflows, ensuring companies react in minutes, not months.
Meanwhile, the DPDP Act and SEBI cybersecurity frameworks are tightening compliance windows.
Firms must automate consent management, ESG data aggregation, and global reporting standards—or risk regulatory, reputational, and financial backlash.
The real choice for CXOs: Do you want your best minds managing Excel trackers—or navigating the future?
Automate for Advantage, or Risk Playing Catch-up
Intelligent automation in governance and compliance isn’t a future trend.
It’s already the present for those who want to win.
Early adopters are reaping real rewards:
- Lower penalties.
- Higher Board confidence.
- Faster strategic pivots.
- Better ESG and global reporting readiness.
Large organisations, especially, must act now. Every delay adds to the learning cost, increases the likelihood of rushed, reactive implementations, and deepens exposure to systemic risks. The smartest companies aren’t asking if they should automate. They are asking: How fast can we embed it into our DNA before it becomes table stakes?
It’s time to move governance from a compliance checklist to a competitive edge.
Automate, Elevate, and Lead.
