Team size: Eight

As we enter the next decade, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

Corporate legal teams should be prepared for partnering with the business rather than restricting themselves in their advisory role. This can be achieved through legal teams being a part of decision-making processes and agreeing to take collective responsibility. Additionally, legal teams should be prepared for digitisation of legal functions, which will not only help them in concluding the contracts faster, but also improve their own turnaround time to the business.

What is the biggest risk facing your industry now and how are you preparing your organisation to deal with this?

Currently, the biggest risk faced by the auto industry is the adverse effect of the pandemic which has resulted in huge disturbance in supply chain management due to non-availability of important auto components. The only way to mitigate this situation is to prepare ourselves for such eventualities, ensuring enough inventory and having a broader supplier base. To that end, it would be important to tie up with multiple suppliers of different jurisdictions and make appropriate contractual arrangements for the same. The pandemic has also made us review some contractual provisions such as force majeure. Another risk is the risk pertaining to the unfortunate ill-reputation that fossil fuels have earned, on account of emissions-related environmental issues. This would entail use of better technology to ensure lesser emissions of harmful gases. For this purpose, again it is necessary to have tie ups for development of these technologies or with those who already have developed such technologies. Entering the field of electric vehicles is another solution for this issue which is being done in a big way by entering tie ups for manufacturing electric vehicles and technologies related to it, including the development of faster charging stations, as well as batteries with higher powers with greater autonomy.

The unusual business environment created by the pandemic has been swiftly followed by the Ukraine crisis, and attendant supply chain costs rising and rising inflation. Are you now putting more emphasis on preparing for the unforeseen and, if so, what does this entail?

As a strong response and preparedness against unforeseen events, I believe it has become essential to review agreements with vendors, particularly the provisions pertaining to supplying commitments, force majeure, and others, and make them more robust when dealing with these situations. Furthermore, it is important to broaden our supply base with more alternatives, wherever possible. Lastly, it may be worth to review the commercial aspect of the strategy pertaining to inventory.