GENNEXT 2021 - BUSINESS & LAW CONGRESS - Keynote Address by Dev Bajpai
As for the second keynote speaker for the day, it was delivered eloquently by Mr. Dev Bajpai, Executive Director, Legal & Corporate Affairs & Company Secretary, Hindustan Unilever Limited. He highlighted that technology was going to be an important enabler in not just shaping businesses, but, more importantly, in shaping societies. "With education, judiciary, and healthcare already moving into the virtual space, technology, will play an all-important role in serving the consumers more efficiently with quality products & services. Lawyers have a role of a facilitator in this new virtual ecosystem. The Digital Transformation Program at HUL is fully supported by the Legal function and the function is a part of the Digital Council led by the Chairman & CEO.
Elaborating further on what that meant for the Legal function, he opined, "Digital transformation being at the forefront of all businesses, understanding the technology interface with business would be a given for in house lawyers. The expected proliferation of regulations trying to catch up with technological growth will add further complexity. Regulations in the area of artificial intelligence, data ethics, blockchain, privacy would require us to embrace learning as the biggest priority, as organizations, and all the more, as individuals. We will need to continuously upskill to keep pace with the change in our business and external environment, due to technology. I believe as lawyers, moving forward, we will need to have a more holistic understanding of business and the external environment than ever before. I would ask our young lawyers to keep this in mind "Digital transformation may not cost our job, but not upskilling, will definitely.
At HUL, the legal function had carried out a Legal Tech Maturity Assessment before the Pandemic to understand where we stand and what are our lawyers telling us to transition to. Based on this, we carried out a full Legal Function Process Assessment and identified 12 areas including Litigation Management, Compliance Management, Claims Management, Business Integrity, Secretarial & Governance, Brand Protection and so on for a full review in terms of systems and processes and how could we digitize them. We identified either in-house tools or tools available off the shelf, customized and deployed them. This has resulted in considerable efficiencies for the function. This is a journey and we have already embarked on it, course-correcting as required. To sharpen the skills of our lawyers, we have started regular training sessions with our IT & Digital team."
