Regulatory risk is now driving corporate strategy across Indian companies

For a long time, Indian regulatory compliance was regarded as a defensive and back-office function—legal teams, compliance officers, and auditors dealt with it only after the business decisions had been made. But that time is gone forever. Today, regulatory risk is even influencing the corporate strategy of a company. Across Indian firms, whether large publicly listed organisations or fast-growing digital platforms, the regulation is not a limiting factor anymore; rather, it is a force that dictates how companies will go about investing in technologies, organising their workforce, managing their data, selecting suppliers, and even their capital allocation.