Compliance management has become an inevitable business process of the modern business. At the foundation of it all is a sound legal compliance platform. In house counsel are key to legislative compliance, however, the sheer length and breadth of compliance processes require real time support from a robust service provider. While studying the compliance market carefully, Lex Witness focused on Sand Legal Services, a service provider that has consistently grown in depth and size of market share in legislative compliance services. We attempt to decode the secret behind Sand Legal’s success in redefining compliance. Read On.
Sand is the edge between the ocean and land. The purpose of sand in the nature of things is to be a facilitator and protector. The importance of sand can never be over emphasised. It filters water systems, protects land from erosion due to continuous ocean wave action and it protects life. Drawing a smile, if law is an ocean, land represents opportunity. Sand Legal strives to be the edge between law and business to ensure one does not wear away the other. To serve as a wellspring of excellence it is incumbent to have subject-matter expertise, efficient services, sustainable long-term support and seamless communication. Sand Legal ensures all of these and more. Its mission is to continually strive to ensure their clients are able to manage the demands of applicable laws across the world in real-time. The teams are strategically structured to ensure constant research, continual updation and client support. Sand Legal has an external network across seventy locations across the world to support their clients.
The compliance biz is a niche, sensitive market. The prospects herein constitute two types of entities primarily. One is a large, geographically spread out enterprise that has reached a certain size and stature. The other is an ambitious start-up that needs systems in place. Therefore, the service offerings based on the needs and aspirations of these two varieties of target audience becomes a very critical element. And this remains the basis of all ethos and pathos at Sand Legal.
The Global Legislative Compliance Service offers critical support to clients in different parts of the world in terms of content, impact, support network and much more. They have a fully equipped internal team and strategic external network to support clients in all the geographies in which they are present. Usually, large multinational companies engage Sand Legal for their GLC services.
The advisory services ensure strategic advice and support to start-up and midsized clients in managing their compliances. The service also extends to clients of all sizes in terms of support in understanding applicability, mode of implementation and other support in controlling risk.
The litigation support services help large Indian companies rationalize and manage the resources, costs and professional services handling their litigation across India. Sand Legal does not litigate on behalf of its clients. They strategize litigation, find the right litigators from its panel of lawyers, track the proceedings, research and offer an umbrella of services in managing multiple litigations across India.
It has helped companies manage close to ten thousand contracts across eighteen countries from China to Eastern Europe through it’s contract management services. Studying contracts, segregating them based on parameters for the purpose of identifying milestones, benchmarks and related risks.
They abstract key triggers points and automate the entire process of contract review and implementation to highlight risks of non-performance.
Fortune 500 companies who have set up their shops in India manage their labour law compliances across India through outsourced compliance services and are quite often advised by Sand Legal. With an extensive network of specialists that manage compliances for clients across all major, second and third rung cities and towns in the country, clients are on top of labour law compliances in mostly all labour intensive industrial verticals.
The licensing services facilitate clients secure trade and several other licenses required for running a business in India. The team ensures that licenses are obtained, renewed and their terms and conditions complied with by their clients.
The PLUS services (Pre-emptive Legal Update Services) helps clients keep updated on the latest legal requirements. Whether clients want to implement a compliance management system for their operations across the world or have an existing compliance management system that needs improvement in terms of subject matter expertise, PLUS supports them. Through this service, one can track applicable laws down to the tasks, time frames and impact and stay updated on the law to ensure compliance. PLUS works on real time basis where law is tracked continually by a dedicated team of lawyers. Currently, it supports clients manage their compliances in 70 locations across the world
The Sand Legal Audit services are probably the oldest of its service offerings. It has audited client facilities across all of India for clients in all key industrial segments. It has helped reduce risks of clients and improve their internal legislative compliance risk management systems. The reports are comprehensive and are used not only to view compliance status but also to ensure continual compliance moving forward.
There’s not one big differentiator. There are many. Firstly, Sand Legal approaches compliance much like sand approaches the diverse needs of the ocean and land. Secondly, the more than fifteen years of experience of their key management and the diversity in the team are critical in understanding the issues of clients and addressing them. While Sai, their Managing Director, is a pioneer in Legislative Compliance Management, Anuj, who heads all operational teams was trained by Sai from the beginning and has tremendous knowledge of not only the law but also the needs of their clients. A key differentiator is the reach. Sand Legal services its clients in more than 70 locations across four different continents from China to Switzerland. In its six years, Sand Legal has acquired tremendous knowledge and a large network of legal services providers to support its endeavours.
Sand Legal has moved laterally and vertically over the years. Each service has broken into several services within it to address the needs and aspirations of its target audience. So that is vertical penetration. They added a wide variety of services over the last five years laterally. All their services are comprised around transactional law for sure and they are complementary to each other to ensure consistency and skill development. A critical factor is their reach across the globe. They are probably the only Indian legislative compliance service provider which has projects in more than 70 locations across the world.
Sand Legal is present in all the 29 states in India. Worldwide, they are in US, Europe, Far East, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa. They currently specialize in about 15 key industrial verticals including, steel, cement, automotive, IT and ITES, Fertilizer, Pharmaceuticals, Retail, Fertilizer, etc.
Sand Legal’s vision is to serve as a wellspring of excellence to facilitate enterprises to run their businesses while complying with the law. We do not let law erode the business, we ensure that law facilitates business. That is the edge we offer.
They aren’t. They are opponents. One cancels out the other by their very nature. Compliance is a remedy. A medicine to set right systemic anomalies. Failure in compliance gives rise to risk. The larger and longer the failure, the more accrual of risk.
Since our skill sets and inventory for all the locations in which we are serving clients worldwide has improved exponentially, we are setting up offices across key geographies in the next twenty four months. We will be covering about thirty eight countries translating to about 500 locations worldwide in the next twenty four to thirty six months. We will be adding a few key services in transactional law in this calendar year. We are signing up with IT partners with presence in India and other key geographies to offer cost effective automated solutions across the world
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