India, May 11 -- India's HR tech sector was caught in a paradox for years. No organisation could function without it, but few were willing to treat it as a value driver.

Payroll, attendance and compliance systems were firmly stuck in the must-have, low-spend bucket, as companies bought HR tech and software out of compulsion, not conviction.

That logic shaped how products were built and how businesses scaled. The first generation of HR tech startups focussed on digitalising core functions. Traditionally, Indian companies struggled to cope with fragmented processes, regulatory complexity and an entrenched reliance on manual processes. By 2016-17, software stepped in to standardise HR workflows, putting them under one roof.

Platforms like...