Recent reports by Deloitte and EY highlight that over 50% of GCCs are now taking on end-to-end ownership of products and digital platforms, rather than only transactional work. What structural or governance shifts have made this transition possible?
The shift of GCCs from transactional support to end-to-end ownership of products and digital platforms marks a significant structural evolution—one that has been enabled by deliberate governance and operating model changes. A key enabler has been the decentralization of decision-making authority, allowing GCCs to operate as strategic extensions of global business units rather than as execution arms. This includes embedding product owners, architects, and digital leads within the GCC itself, giving teams the mandate and autonomy to define roadmaps, prioritize backlogs, and deliver outcomes.
Additionally, organizations have introduced innovation budgets, embedded leadership mandates, and AI-led CoEs, tracking performance beyond cost metrics fuelling strategic investment in GCCs. This structural shift is backed by formalized governance forums that align GCC KPIs with enterprise objectives, reinforcing accountability, speed-to-market, and ownership of product lifecycles. Collectively, these governance frameworks have been pivotal in elevating GCC ownership from transactional to transformational.
It is also seen that steadily India is becoming a GCC hub for many Indian and Intl companies these days. What is it that is suddenly attracting Indian real estate across borders?
India’s emergence as a global GCC hub is increasingly reshaping the real estate landscape, drawing strong interest from both domestic and international players. What’s attracting this cross-border attention isn’t just the scale of GCC expansion, it is the quality and maturity of demand. Today’s GCCs are no longer seeking generic office space; they need digitally enabled, future-ready campuses that support agile, cross-functional teams, foster collaboration, and accommodate hybrid work models. A key driver behind this momentum is India’s young, diverse, and digitally fluent talent pool, which offers companies a sustainable pipeline of innovation-ready professionals across AI, data science, product design, and engineering. This demographic advantage is unmatched in many other global markets, making India an obvious choice for long-term strategic investments.
Moreover, the predictability and long-term nature of GCC tenancy, often backed by global mandates, makes them highly attractive to real estate investors seeking stable, institutional-grade returns. Cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai are evolving into innovation corridors, where tech parks are being developed not just as workplaces, but as ecosystems for talent, innovation, and well-being. Government support through infrastructure upgrades, improved ease of doing business, and faster regulatory clearances further amplifies India’s appeal.
Traditionally, GCCs delivered cost and process efficiency. Today, many drive AI, data analytics, and product innovation for global markets. How are talent strategies and skill priorities evolving to support this shift?
As GCCs evolve from cost-focused delivery centres to strategic hubs driving AI, data analytics, and product innovation, their talent strategies and skill priorities are undergoing a fundamental shift. The emphasis is moving away from scale-based hiring toward capability-led talent development, where quality, adaptability, and deep domain expertise matter more than volume. Organizations are now prioritizing talent with full-stack product thinking, digital-first mindsets, and cross-functional fluency—especially in areas like machine learning, cloud engineering, data science, UX design, and platform architecture. This transformation has also led to a surge in strategic workforce planning, where skilling, reskilling, and continuous learning are no longer HR functions but central to business strategy.
A BCG report shows that over 90% of top-tier GCCs have established AI Centres of Excellence in the past 18 months, cementing data-driven capabilities as central to their strategy. Industry insights from ANSR and EY highlight that GCCs now embed continuous learning ecosystems, including certifications, internal bootcamps and GenAI mentoring programs especially targeting GenZ talent who expect purpose, growth, and flexible/hybrid environments. Competency frameworks are expanding to include product lifecycle ownership, data storytelling, agile ways of working, and innovation metrics ensuring talent can deliver measurable business impact, not just execute tasks.
As GCCs expand from operational hubs to strategic centers, how do leadership and cultural transformation play a role in bridging headquarters vision with local autonomy?
As GCCs transition from operational hubs to strategic centres, leadership and cultural transformation have become essential to bridging the gap between headquarters’ vision and local autonomy. This evolution demands a shift from a command-and-control model to one that fosters trust, empowerment, and shared accountability. Effective GCC leaders today are not just operational heads—they are global integrators, capable of translating enterprise-wide goals into local execution while championing innovation from the ground up. Cultivating such leadership requires investing in people who possess both technical acumen and cross-cultural fluency, enabling them to navigate the complexities of working across time zones, cultures, and business priorities.
Equally important is building a culture of ownership, experimentation, and psychological safety—a departure from the earlier delivery-driven mindset. This means giving teams the autonomy to co-create solutions, take risks, and contribute to strategic outcomes. Leadership must also play an active role in institutionalizing agile practices, transparent communication, and purpose-driven work environments that align with both global standards and local aspirations. When leadership and culture are intentionally shaped to support this dual alignment, GCCs not only execute efficiently—they also become trusted partners in enterprise transformation, capable of influencing strategy and accelerating innovation at a global scale.
Data from NASSCOM suggests that India’s GCCs are becoming testbeds for emerging tech like GenAI, IoT, and cloud-native platforms. Beyond technology, what role do these centers play in shaping global business models?
India’s GCCs are no longer limited to backend operations—they have evolved into strategic hubs that actively shape global business models. While they continue to lead in testing and deploying emerging technologies like GenAI, IoT, and cloud-native platforms, their true impact lies in how they drive transformation across business functions. These centres are deeply embedded in global operations, enabling agile decision-making, innovation at scale, and market responsiveness. They help global enterprises standardize systems while adapting offerings for regional nuances, turning India into a critical nerve centre for product innovation, digital strategy, and customer-centric solutions.
Beyond technology, India’s GCCs are also redefining the talent narrative. With a sharp focus on building deep-tech expertise and leadership capabilities, these centres are driving the next wave of workforce evolution. They are attracting top talent across functions from engineering and data science to strategy and product management—while also investing heavily in upskilling and cross-functional leadership development. As a result, they are becoming incubators for global leaders who understand both emerging technologies and evolving business landscapes. India’s GCCs are not just technology accelerators, but holistic value creators, shaping how the world’s leading enterprises design, scale, and evolve their business models.
While scaling innovation, many GCCs face legacy process constraints and global alignment challenges. What agile operating models or cross-functional teams are proving effective to overcome these hurdles?
As GCCs scale innovation, persistent constraints like legacy processes and rigid global alignment often slow them down. To overcome these hurdles, many centres are embracing agile, cross-functional operating models that break traditional silos and empower local autonomy. One proven structure is the pod or squad model, where autonomous multidisciplinary teams—comprising engineering, product, design, data and business experts own end-to-end product delivery. This setup enhances speed, responsiveness, and alignment with HQ priorities via frequent syncs while reducing dependency bottlenecks. GCCs are also transitioning toward product-centric operating models, embedding DevSecOps, continuous integration, and modular microservices architecture to support incremental innovation and scalability.
These agile structures frequently operate within a hub-and-spoke framework, balancing central governance with localized execution, which allows global alignment without stifling local experimentation. Many GCCs have also established transformation offices or CoEs, tasked with dismantling legacy barriers, institutionalizing agile practices, and ensuring business-technology convergence as part of value creation strategy.
Distributed agile practices like daily stand-ups, sprint planning, virtual collaboration with headquarters are critical to sustaining momentum, particularly across time zones and cultures. GCCs foster psychological safety and empathy in their teams, cementing trust and shared accountability even in remote settings. Together, these agile models and cross-functional teams enable GCCs to transcend outdated operating norms, delivering greater innovation velocity, operational resilience, and strategic value for global enterprises.
In the context of global talent wars, how are GCCs redefining their EVP (Employee Value Proposition) to attract niche digital, design, and AI talent—not just back-office specialists?
GCCs are actively redefining their Employee Value Proposition (EVP) to move beyond the traditional image of back-office support and appeal to niche talent in digital, AI, and design. This shift is driven by their growing mandate to lead innovation, own global products, and incubate future-ready capabilities. To attract this high-impact talent, GCCs are positioning themselves as dynamic ecosystems where professionals can work on cutting-edge technologies, collaborate across global teams, and take ownership of end-to-end solutions. They are emphasizing career growth, exposure to advanced tech stacks, cross-functional mobility, and the opportunity to be part of strategic decision-making—not just execution.
In this context, the broader expectations of the Indian workforce become highly relevant. Work-life balance, equity, and attractive salary & benefits are some of the top three drivers that talent look for when choosing an employer. These priorities are particularly resonant for digital and AI professionals, who increasingly seek organizations that support flexible work, inclusive cultures, and competitive rewards—elements that are now integral to how leading GCCs shape and communicate their EVP. By addressing both professional aspirations and personal well-being, GCCs are positioning themselves as preferred employers for the next generation of tech talent.
Looking ahead, what KPIs should leadership use to measure a GCC’s impact not just on cost or efficiency, but on strategic innovation and enterprise transformation?
Looking ahead, measuring a GCC’s value through traditional KPIs like cost savings or operational efficiency alone will no longer be sufficient. As these centres take on more strategic roles, leadership must adopt a more holistic and forward-looking set of KPIs that reflect their contribution to innovation, agility, and enterprise transformation. Key among these is the rate of innovation throughout—how many new digital products, platforms, or features are ideated, piloted, and scaled from the GCC. Closely tied to this is the speed-to-market of innovations, reflecting how efficiently the centre accelerates global business priorities. Another critical metric is talent agility and upskilling velocity—tracking how rapidly the workforce is being equipped with emerging skills like AI, cloud, and design thinking to stay ahead of transformation curves.
Additionally, cross-functional collaboration indices and internal customer satisfaction scores can provide insight into the GCC’s role in driving seamless global execution and strategic alignment. Lastly, leadership should monitor the percentage of enterprise-critical initiatives anchored in the GCC, as a proxy for the centre’s growing influence on core business outcomes. By redefining success through these lenses, organizations can better capture the transformative potential of their GCCs and position them as integral partners in shaping the enterprise of the future.
