MAM
GUEST COLUMN: Major challenges faced by the Ad-Tech industry in 2021
New Delhi: With the emergence of digital media as a key marketing channel and the advent of technology as a driving factor, the last decade has induced major transformation across the ad-tech industry. The COVID-19 pandemic has further pushed the industry to its limits, making tech adoption a cornerstone of survival.
With digital consumption increasing enormously due to the pandemic, consumer behavior has also changed drastically. According to the latest Digital Commerce 360 analysis, consumers in the US spent $861.12 billion online in 2020, whereas this figure was $598.02 billion in 2019. There has been a rise of about 44.0 per cent in online spending in the US.
A report by Worldpay FIS, a financial technology product and services provider says COVID-19 has led to a huge upsurge in the Indian Commerce industry and there is substantial room for future growth. Consequent to this digital shift, the year gone by also saw some fundamental changes become mainstream in the industry. For example, a significant increase in digital ad spends, the use of AI and machine learning to increase speed, accuracy, and gain high customer-centricity, and use of performance-based marketing strategies have become central to digital advertising success.
This is probably another year of uncertainty for brands and the ones who adapt to the altered digital strategies are the ones who would sail through these difficult times. The game plan will include a better understanding of the online behavior of consumers, be responsive to the content trends while continuing to stick to their plan to provide genuine and meaningful engagement to consumers.
Speed breakers ahead
Advertisers faced immense operational challenges in 2020. This has made them more reliant on programmatic media buying and has forced them to look for more efficient solutions to advertise. Data from Crunchbase, a platform that gathers data about the business, suggests that in the last five years there has been a dip in the ad-tech revenue at a 10 per cent compounded rate. But positive signs have emerged now. The emerging consumer behavior from the pandemic has propelled a greater need and inclination towards advertising technology. Digital advertising on online channels such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google are likely to build up about 61 per cent of all advertising in 2021. About 86 per cent of marketers today are banking on video formats for advertising, educating, and entertaining their audience.
Enter the ROI driven world
The changing dynamics of the AdTech world have made performance, data insight, and automation key success tools. With the dominance of performance-driven products and solutions, tracking ROI is crucial for any business.
Performance-based marketing is fast emerging as the preferred choice for advertisers. Increasingly, players in the AdTech industry are adopting software and platforms that give them trackable and measurable insights into the performance of their ad strategy. Platforms like Trackier have used this emerging space to offer highly customer-friendly multi-channel tracking platforms that help brands measure the true value of their ad campaigns and realign their strategies when not found effective.
The game is changing
The past decade has seen marketers fixating on delivering personalized marketing solutions. The building block of this model has been the colossal data compilation of personal information floating through the system. To date, this data collection has been enabling marketers to keep a track of people’s lives online. However, this scenario is going to change now.
Privacy is prime; Safari and Firefox have already blocked third-party cookies by default and taking a step further tech giants like Google and Apple have put a check on cross-site tracking. With Google announcing its plan to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome by 2022, and Apple via updates via ITP, the digital players would now have to refocus their strategies. They will have to rely on probabilistic data to target the audience and get accustomed to the world of unidentified users. But taking this as an opportunity where there is a need to promote innovative techniques to deliver engaging and relevant advertising. In such a scenario, contextual targeting will see a rise. It is more respectful of the user’s privacy and more honest while collecting data.
Affiliate marketing is transforming
Preferred over traditional ways, affiliate marketing has gained more importance in the era of increased online advertising. The prime focus of affiliate marketing has been on value rather than volume. Better-designed programs supported by data metrics can improve tracking methodologies and blockchain. Brands will want to divert their funds to channels that show better ROI. This inclination will allow affiliate marketers to trust the connections within their network and re-align their budgets accordingly. It is time for affiliate marketers to be extremely selective about the partners they choose to add to their program.
Factors of growth
The growth in online consumers would drive the digital wave in 2021. However, more people browsing online would not necessarily mean increased online sales. This is where the role of advertising and marketing becomes pertinent. According to Marketer.com, about 88 per cent of all US digital display ad sum is flowing via automation by 2021. Artificial intelligence-enabled programmatic advertising can automate these processes. Advertisers and agencies to tech vendors will need to revisit their identity strategies and look for efficient solutions, which may be different for different companies.
Reinvention is the key
For the tech industry, 2021 is the year to move away from the existing systems and invent better ecosystems to better suit the changing situations. This would include looking for better ways to utilize the existing data to target the audience. With data curb from the tech giants, brands need to find more sustainable data supply sources. Questions need to be asked about how the operations would be run in absence of cookies.
It is time for advertisers to look forward to a better
understanding of new-age advertising, consumer trends, and the key technology driving it. Consumer attention and devices will be versatile and there will be greater reliance on tools that go beyond universal identifiers. As the companies are adopting new-age technologies, it is leading the way for ad tech – especially in the digital space. With the rise of the virtual population and innovative technology, advertisers are hoping that 2021 will be the year of improved digital interactions between brands and consumers.
(Udit Verma is the co-founder and CMO of Trackier- a SAAS based performance marketing platform that allows brands to effectively manage and track their online ad campaigns. The views expressed in the column are personal and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.)
If your HR software still feels like a glorified spreadsheet with a login page, 2026 is the year to rethink everything. Especially as HR software in India evolves rapidly to meet compliance, scale, and workforce complexity.
Why 2019 HRMS You Chose Probably Isn’t Enough Anymore?
To be honest, most businesses didn’t really choose their HRMS; they just happened to get it. A vendor demo, a short deadline, and a CFO who approved the budget all made you stuck with a system that was “good enough” at the time.
Today, that same system is struggling to keep up with hybrid work, distributed teams, complicated compliance issues, and employee expectations that have changed a lot in just five years. This is exactly where modern HR automation software is redefining how HR teams operate, moving from manual processes to intelligent workflows.
As per the 2025 report by Gartner, more than 58% of HR professionals stated that their existing software did not fully enable their workforce strategy. On the other hand, as per the HR Tech survey conducted by PwC, those companies that invested in modern HRMS systems were able to improve their HR efficiency level by up to 22% and reduce compliance penalties by 15%.
The takeaway is that the HRMS world has grown up, and so have the expectations surrounding it. Be it the CHRO developing the company’s digital transformation plan, the CFO analysing return-on-investment figures, or the CEO looking to grow his organisation without HR being a constraint, this checklist will help you achieve success.
This is your list of top 10 HRMS features your team simply cannot do without in 2026.
1. Unified Employee Data Architecture (Single Source of Truth)
This is the base on which everything else is built. A modern HRMS must get rid of data silos by keeping one central, real-time record of each employee from the time they are hired until they leave. That means that all of your payroll data, performance history, leave balances, benefits enrolment, document management, and compliance records are all in one place.
For companies with more than 500 employees, having HR data that is not organised or that are simply exploring HR outsourcing can cost between $15,000 and $40,000 a year just to fix (Deloitte, 2024). The number goes up quickly when you include the compliance risk from records that don’t match.
What to look for:
- Bidirectional synchronization between modules
- API-first approach to integration
- Access based on roles and responsibilities
- Audits that can withstand a detailed examination, be it by an internal auditor or an employment agency inspection.
2. Payroll That Runs Automatically and Stays Compliant
Payroll has surpassed being a routine month-end task to becoming intelligent software that must be able to handle variable pay packages, multistate/multinationals’ taxation, loans, statutory deductions (PF, ESI, TDS, and PT for India) and even off-cycle processing without a hitch.
The real differentiator in 2026? HR automation software based compliance. Laws about work change. Tax brackets change. There is a fluctuation in the minimum wage based on the region. A good payroll system should always update itself with respect to changes in regulations.
Important numbers to remember:
- 40% of small and medium-sized businesses have to pay payroll penalties every year because of mistakes made while processing (IRS, 2024)
- When compared to manual methods, automated payroll systems can cut processing time by as much as 80%.
- According to SHRM (2025), companies that use integrated payroll-HRMS platforms make 93% fewer mistakes when entering data.
For businesses operating across multiple geographies, especially those leveraging EOR (Employer of Record) arrangements. Your payroll software also needs to interface cleanly with local in-country payroll engines without creating reconciliation nightmares.
3. Employer of Record (EOR) Integration and Global Hiring Support
It’s not just multinationals that hire people from other countries anymore. More and more, startups, mid-sized businesses, and even businesses that only operate in one area are putting together teams that work across state and national lines. And that’s where things get really complicated.
Companies can legally hire workers in places where they don’t have a legal entity through an EOR (Employer of Record) arrangement. But managing those workers on a platform that wasn’t made for it is a mess. Many businesses in India are now combining HR outsourcing models with EOR services to simplify global hiring. Your HRMS must have built-in support for EOR workflows, such as classifying contractors and employees, following local compliance rules, processing payroll in any currency, and creating documents that meet local regulatory standards.
In 2025, compliance confidence was the top driver for 72% of companies using EOR services, according to Velocity Global, but only 34% of those companies said their HRMS could manage such processes.
Request: Onboarding processes suitable for EOR usage, employment contracts valid for multiple jurisdictions, and an overall consolidated overview of all global employees, whether direct or EOR-based.
4. End-to-End Recruitment and Onboarding Automation
The best talent doesn’t wait. The average staffing and recruitment time is around 42 days (LinkedIn Talent Solutions, 2025), therefore, a long and inefficient recruitment process is a competitive disadvantage. This is where HR automation software comes in as a competitive advantage, streamlining hiring workflows, reducing manual intervention and ensuring onboarding is consistent, fast and structured.
More importantly, onboarding automation is where many platforms still fall short. Poor onboarding is expensive: research from SHRM shows that replacing a single employee can cost 50–200% of their annual salary, and a significant driver of early attrition is a disorganised onboarding experience.
Look for:
- Automated Offer Letter generation
- Electronic document acquisition and signature
- Customised onboarding tasks based on job role
- An equipment access checklist
- Buddy programme workflow setup and 30-60-90 day follow-up triggers that you can set up without contacting your vendor.
5. Performance Tracking That Matches Real Work
Not only does it belong in the past, but yearly appraisals are indeed harmful to the performance environment. By 2026, if you’re not paying for continuous performance capabilities in your HRMS solution, then you should probably get your money back, as all modern systems come fully loaded with goal-setting frameworks (OKRs, KRAs), immediate feedback, peer reviews, manager check-ins, and career development planning.
Companies that have adopted continuous performance reported to have a 14% rise in employee engagement levels and a reduction of 12% in voluntary turnover (Gallup, 2024). For those executives looking at retention numbers, that is substantial.
Also non-negotiable in 2026: you’ll want to look for systems which include features to protect managers from making biased evaluations and to help identify future leaders in advance of a leadership vacuum occurring.
6. Leave, Attendance, and Workforce Scheduling Intelligence
This sounds basic, and it should be. Yet it remains one of the most complained-about areas in enterprise HRMS. The problem is not in the collection of leave information but in the intelligent aspect. Is there an algorithm that identifies staffing gaps when three employees ask for leave in the same week? Can it support both the scheduling of shifts for field staff and flexible hours for office personnel?
In India specifically, the Shops & Establishments Act regulations vary according to location and industry. This must be automatically managed in the HRMS software, rather than manually configuring each time the rules change.
Must-have features here include
- Leave management based on policy (this includes compensatory leave and encashment)
- Geo-fencing of attendance data
- Shift swapping coordination
- Auto-calculation of overtime compensation and integration with payroll reporting.
7. Global Mobility and Expat Management
For organisations with international operations or employees on cross-border assignments, global mobility management is no longer a “nice-to-have”. It’s a legal necessity. Moving an employee across borders involves immigration compliance, tax equalisation, shadow payrolls, split payrolls, cost-of-living adjustments, and assignment tracking, all of which need to be managed systematically.
Global mobility mismanagement is an underestimated financial risk. A single failed tax equalisation calculation for an expat can create a liability running into tens of thousands of dollars. And with remote work blurring the lines of tax residency, the complexity is only growing.
The features that you should look out for in an HRMS include:
- Assignment lifecycle management
- Compatibility with mobility service providers
- Compliance alerts specific to countries
- Budget planning with costing tools
- Audit trail records for immigration and taxation purposes.
8. Analytics, Workforce Intelligence, and Predictive HR
If your Human Resource Management System can only tell you last year’s headcount or average tenure, it’s simply functioning as a reporting tool. In 2026, the bar is predictive and prescriptive analytics.
Think about what truly matters to leadership: What matters to your organisation’s executives? Which areas are likely to have high turnover within the next 90 days? What’s the return on investment of a training programme initiated six months ago? Where are the gaps in your diversity among your future leaders? How does your pay compare to the market’s?
For the expanding market of HR software within India, predictive analytics will emerge as a significant differentiating factor among corporate leadership. According to a study conducted by McKinsey in 2025, firms that have more sophisticated workforce analytics tools than others have proven 2.3 times more capable of outperforming their competitors in total shareholder returns.
Look for:
- Pre-built HR dashboards
- Custom report builders
- Cohort analysis
- Attrition prediction models
- DEI analytics and data export capabilities for BI tools like Power BI or Tableau.
9. Employee Self-Service, ESS Mobile App, and Conversational AI
Today’s modern workforce, particularly Gen Z and younger millennials, expects work tools that are just as intuitive as consumer applications. The HRMS that asks your employees to email HR for a payslip and calls up the helpdesk for checking their leave balances has been silently diminishing the reputation of your employer brand.
Employee Self-Service (ESS) with complete mobile access has become a basic expectation for 2026. The factor that makes the winning difference between leaders is the use of conversational AI in the form of chatbots and virtual assistants within the HRMS, who will respond to policy-related queries, manage routine requests, and push out relevant data.
Numbers to make the business case: Adoption of ESS leads to a reduction in HR transaction load by 30-50% (Mercer, 2025). Organisations with high adoption of ESS records 23% greater employee satisfaction levels with respect to HR services.
10. Security, Data Privacy, and Compliance Infrastructure
This tends to be overlooked on checklists, precisely the opposite of what should happen. Employee data might be some of the most highly confidential data within your organisation’s databases, including salary details, health care documentation, performance reviews, discipline records, and even financial data.
By 2025, HR data breaches accounted for 23% of total enterprise data breaches in IBM’s annual Cost of a Data Breach report, and the average financial impact of an HR breach was $4.7 million. In addition, if you are operating in India, there is another legal requirement under the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, that your HRMS vendor must help you comply with.
Requirements include:
- SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certification
- End-to-end encryption
- DPDP-compliant in data processing
- Access control based on consent
- Data sovereignty of vendor and incident response SLA.
Quick HRMS Features Checklist 2026
| Features | Why It Matters | Key Metric |
| Unified Employee Data | No silos, one-stop information repository | Reduces costs by ₹10 to ₹30 lakh per year |
| Intelligent Payroll Software | Auto-compliance, error-free processing | 80% faster payroll runs |
| EOR Integration | Supports global, cross-border hiring | Only 34% of HRMS platforms support this today |
| Recruitment & Onboarding Automation | Faster hiring, lower early attrition | Reduces time-to-hire by up to 30% |
| Continuous Performance Management | Replaces outdated appraisal cycles | 14% higher engagement reported |
| Leave, Attendance & Scheduling | Compliance + ops efficiency | Reduces leave-related disputes by ~60% |
| Global Mobility Management | Tax, immigration & assignment compliance | Prevents six-figure expat tax liabilities |
| Workforce Analytics & Predictive AI | Strategic decision-making for leadership | 2.3x higher business performance (McKinsey) |
| ESS Mobile App + Conversational AI | Employer brand, employee experience | 30–50% drop in HR transactional load |
| Security & DPDP Compliance | Legal protection, data integrity | Avg. breach cost: $4.7M (IBM, 2025) |
What This Means for Indian Businesses Specifically?
HR software technology in India is projected to reach $1.7 billion by 2027, growing at a 14.2% CAGR (NASSCOM, 2025). That growth is being driven by SMEs and mid-market companies finally graduating from legacy payroll tools and disconnected HR processes toward integrated, cloud-native platforms.
However, what is overlooked in the broader conversations is that Indian organisations have to navigate through a complex landscape of regulations. Your organisation will have to manage PF, ESI, PT (depending on which state you belong to), gratuity, TDS, the recently enacted DPDP act, labor laws applicable to your respective states, and, in the case of multinational firms, payroll in different countries along with EORs.
And this is precisely why choosing the right platform, one designed keeping in mind Indian regulations as well as having international ambitions, is an important consideration.
How TankhaPay Supports Modern Workforce Needs?
When you look at this checklist against the backdrop of India’s workforce, like its sheer diversity, the complexity of state-wise compliance, and the massive base of contractual, gig, and blue-collar workers who are still largely underserved by mainstream HRMS platforms, one platform stands out for addressing this gap thoughtfully.
TankhaPay is purpose-built for Indian businesses navigating the full spectrum of workforce management challenges. From automated statutory compliance (PF, ESI, TDS, PT) embedded directly into its payroll engine to digital onboarding designed for both white-collar and blue-collar employees, TankhaPay brings together the features on this checklist in a platform that doesn’t require an army of IT consultants to configure or maintain.
If your business operates on a contract-based workforce, the Contractor Management feature within TankhaPay will cover you right from attendance till compliance documentation, an area which all major HRMS solutions for enterprises continue to address only as a workaround solution. In the case of CHROs running growing organisations, it means being fully prepared for headcount numbers, attrition rates, and payroll costs. And for CFOs concerned about payroll accuracy and compliance risks without any surprises later on, the dedicated compliance engine from TankhaPay addresses those concerns completely.
As more companies turn towards an EOR approach for cross-state hiring as well as global mobility of key personnel, there is a need for a solution that scales with your ambitions but does not deviate from the rigours of Indian labor law compliance.
Final Thoughts
HRMS selection in 2026 is a long-term strategic investment. The ten capabilities outlined above in our HRMS selection checklist are not merely “nice-to-have” features; they represent the minimum threshold of what constitutes a modern, robust human resources technology platform. If you don’t meet this minimum threshold, you’re not only wasting opportunities; you’re increasing your organisation’s risks in terms of legal compliance, operational excellence, and talent management.
Before signing that new contract, before attending your next product demonstration, or before revisiting your next HR budget allocation, make sure you have this HRMS selection checklist on hand.
