Industrial Automation Magazine India

Core Integra has been a market leader in the labour law compliance space

Published on : Friday 10-03-2023

Sandesh Chitnis, Chief Executive Officer at Core Integra.

Could you tell us about Core Integra and its flagship Ctrl F platform?
Core Integra was founded in 2009 with the goal of providing high-quality labour law compliance advice, simplifying compliances for greater adherence by organisations of various sizes and scales, and digitising compliance processes to enable anywhere-anytime fulfilment by anyone who is not necessarily an expert in the compliances. Core Integra’s goal is to educate the industry on compliance requirements, make it easier to be 100% compliant, and convert paper to digital format for accurate and timely submissions. The authorities must have greater transparency, governance, and control over industry participants during this process.
 
CtrlF was introduced in 2014 as an addition to Core Integra’s service portfolio. We began offering CtrlF as a SaaS model a few years ago and have since acquired 100+ clients in a short period of time after launching the SaaS model. CtrlF includes a library of all Acts, Laws, Notifications, and Circulars, as well as a repository for critical documents such as licences, registrations, notices, and audit reports of an organisation, as well as an auto alert mechanism to prevent missing any critical deadlines. Under Acts and Laws specifically applicable to an organisation, the software generates various registers, returns, filings, and submissions in Central and State formats in English, regional language, and bi-lingual modes. For seamless and secure data transfer, the software can easily integrate with any Client software. It has been an exciting journey for us, and we now serve 750+ clients across 25 industries in 1500+ locations across India.
 
How has Core Integra grown over the years?
Core Integra has been a market leader in the labour law compliance space for over a decade in the areas of Advisory, Outsourcing, and Technology. Core Integra is one of the few companies that provides a comprehensive digital platform (Ctrl F) to ease compliance management, reporting, and to provide the organisation with greater governance and control. It is simple to integrate with the Client’s internal software.
 
Ctrl F has been available in a SaaS model for the last few years, and the industry has responded positively. Our goal is to ensure maximum Ctrl F penetration in India to facilitate Organisations’ understanding and adherence to 100% compliance requirements. Overall, it has been an exciting journey for us, and with the government focusing on simplifying compliances, we anticipate that it will scale robustly in the coming years.
 
What are your long-term goals for the business?
For the upcoming fiscal year, we have significant expansion plans. The priority is to increase CtrlF penetration in domestic markets, for which numerous initiatives are in the works. Over the next 6-9 months, there will be numerous product enhancements as well as the introduction of cutting-edge technologies.
 
We are confident in enhancing existing Client relationships across product lines and achieving a three-digit percentage increase in Client acquisition, for which the team size on the technology and services side is being scaled. We are also excited to open new offices in India. There are some international plans in the works, but it is too early to reveal them.
 
What are the key takeaways from the Union Budget 2023 regarding labour/employee compliance?
It is encouraging to note that the Hon Finance Minister and the Government has been taking effective steps towards ease of doing business, reducing the number of compliances, decriminalising certain non-compliances and introducing a unified platform to avoid submitting the same information in different formats to various authorities. This gives significant comfort to the industry, especially the start-ups which are playing, and will continue to play, a significant role in transforming the way India does business in domestic and international markets.
 
From an individual’s perspective, the Hon FM has increased the base tax slabs from 5 lakh to 7 lakh, simplified the tax slabs and tax rates, reduced the highest tax rates, and taken a step towards moving to a single tax regime by making the new regime the default one beginning with Budget 2023. This is a welcome announcement for the entire salaried class community.
 
What regulatory compliance services do you provide your customers?
The primary issue faced by the industry today is to understand which Laws and Acts are applicable to them, what are the various one time and recurring compliances that they need to fulfil, what and where are the formats that need to be filed, where do I get an interpretation of the notification or circular, how do I remember what is due and when, there are number of forms that needs to be filled in and submitted, what do I do if I get a notice or inspection from the authority.
 
Core Integra offers advisory services to educate and help understand the various applicable compliances, provide written and verbal opinions, provide easy interpretation of various Laws, Acts, notifications and circulars and handle any notices, inspections or litigations with authorities. The Client may choose to outsource their entire compliances responsibility to Core Integra. To facilitate easy exchange of information, higher transparency and better control, we offer Ctrl F, a comprehensive labour law compliances platform, on services and SaaS model to Client. Ctrl F includes a library of all Acts, Laws, Notifications, and Circulars, as well as a repository for critical documents such as licences, registrations, notices, and audit reports of an organisation, as well as an auto alert mechanism to prevent missing any critical deadlines. Under Acts and Laws specifically applicable to an organisation, the software generates various registers, returns, filings, and submissions in Central and State formats in English, regional language, and bi-lingual modes. For seamless and secure data transfer, the software can easily integrate with any Client software.
 
Sandesh Chitnis manages complete Technology Development for the organisation along with focusing on strategic tie-ups for Business growth.
 
He has been associated with the Finance & Broking industry for over 23 years out of which 18 years were at Morgan Stanley.
 
He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Commerce with a Post Graduation in Export Management from Mumbai University.