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Introduction: The Quiet Reinvention of India’s GCC Story
For years, the success of Global Capability Centres, or GCCs, in India was measured by one simple metric: how many people they employed. Scale was the headline, hiring was the proof, and India emerged as the world’s largest hub for white-collar global talent. But beneath this familiar narrative, a deeper transformation is unfolding. As artificial intelligence, automation, and advanced digital platforms reshape enterprise operations, GCC leaders are making a decisive shift. Sustainability is no longer about size. It is about outcomes, innovation, and strategic relevance to global headquarters.
From Headcount to High-Impact Work
Traditional GCC growth stories often celebrated rapid hiring and large campuses. While this remains impressive, leaders now acknowledge that volume alone cannot future-proof these centres. As AI becomes embedded across business functions, repetitive and commoditised work is increasingly automated. This reality has forced GCCs to reassess their role within global enterprises and ask harder questions about the value they truly deliver.
A Shared Realisation Across Global Pharma Leaders
During a multi-city programme conducted with NASSCOM, a striking pattern emerged among global pharmaceutical companies operating GCCs in India. Despite operating independently, leaders echoed almost identical language when describing their strategy. The emphasis was clear: innovation must replace scale as the primary driver of relevance.
Roche’s Shift Away from Scale-Driven Thinking
At a Mumbai event, Raja Jamalamadaka, Managing Director of Roche Digital Centre of Excellence India, articulated this shift with clarity. He explained that sustaining innovation requires letting go of an obsession with size and scale. Roche’s India GCC prioritises high-quality, innovation-led work, while much of the lower-value activity is intentionally outsourced. The centre positions itself as a hub for ideas and outcomes, not volume.
Bristol Myers Squibb’s Refusal of Commoditised Work
A similar philosophy was voiced in Hyderabad by Mohit Dhingra, Managing Director of Bristol Myers Squibb India. He openly described how frequently he rejects work proposals that resemble commoditised delivery. Cost arbitrage may be comfortable and easy, but it does not guarantee meaningful business outcomes. Selectivity, he argued, is now a leadership responsibility.
Bold Leadership Choices in an Automated Future
Dhingra highlighted another unconventional decision: his India centre operates only in the general shift and avoids second or night shifts entirely. These are not operational constraints but deliberate leadership calls. With automation poised to replace nearly half of routine white-collar roles, filling centres with vulnerable jobs offers no long-term protection for talent or business value.
AI as the Backbone of Drug Development Transformation
Drug development typically spans 10 to 15 years and can cost more than USD 2 billion. Bristol Myers Squibb has become deeply committed to using AI across the entire pipeline, from molecule discovery and clinical trials to manufacturing and commercialisation. The India GCC, employing around 3,000 professionals, has become central to this transformation, helping compress timelines and reduce costs through advanced analytics and AI-driven experimentation.
Innovation Leadership in Financial Services GCCs
The innovation-first mindset extends beyond life sciences. Santhanam Govindraj, CTO of Broadridge Financial Solutions India, emphasised that many of the parent company’s core innovations now originate from its India centre. By harnessing AI, blockchain, and campus-driven energy, the GCC directly contributes to enterprise growth rather than merely supporting it.
India at the Core of Enterprise Blockchain Systems
Broadridge’s India team has conceptualised and delivered several enterprise-grade blockchain solutions. Among the most ambitious is a digital ledger processing approximately USD 400 billion in US Treasury repos daily. As global markets move toward tokenisation of securities, India-based teams are playing a pivotal role in building the next generation of financial infrastructure.
Tokenisation and the Next Leap in Capital Markets
Tokenisation represents a structural shift in how securities are issued, traded, and settled. Broadridge’s work in this space, much of it driven from India, positions the GCC not as an offshore arm but as a strategic innovation engine embedded in global financial evolution.
How Tech Service Providers Accelerate GCC Innovation
Kiran Cherukuri, Global GCC Practice Head at HCLTech, explained how technology service providers can amplify GCC innovation. Platforms developed by service firms dramatically reduce AI implementation timelines, enabling GCCs to move faster from experimentation to production without reinventing foundational capabilities.
India’s Demographic Advantage Fuels GCC Momentum
India’s demographic profile remains a powerful tailwind. With a growing talent pool and shortages in developed markets, work continues to flow toward regions with skilled labour availability. Around 40 percent of India’s IT and technology workforce is already employed by GCCs, and expansion momentum shows no signs of slowing.
Government and Ecosystem Support Strengthen the Model
Both central and state governments have recognised the strategic importance of GCCs. Increased collaboration among academia, startups, industry, and policymakers is creating an ecosystem that supports not just scale, but sustained innovation and enterprise-grade capability building.
The End of GCC and Service Provider Rivalry
Until recently, GCCs and IT service providers were viewed as competitors. That perception has largely disappeared. Both models now coexist, driven by the sheer volume and complexity of global digital work. Each brings complementary strengths that enterprises increasingly rely upon.
Why New GCCs Rely on Service Providers
For newly established GCCs, navigating India’s talent and infrastructure landscape can be daunting. Service providers bring decades of experience in hiring, onboarding, and operational setup, allowing new centres to stabilise quickly and focus on strategic mandates.
Scale and Specialisation at Speed
Large service firms like Concentrix hire thousands of professionals each month during peak seasons. Beyond volume, they offer access to specialised skills at optimised costs, a critical advantage as enterprise work becomes more complex and domain-specific.
Foundational Capabilities as a Shared Service
Capabilities such as data governance, analytics, and managed security services are often delivered more efficiently by service providers who already operate these systems internally at massive scale. This allows GCCs to avoid costly trial-and-error while maintaining enterprise-grade resilience.
Supporting Mature GCCs with Ecosystem Thinking
Even mature GCCs benefit from service providers when experimenting with new functions or expanding into multi-functional ecosystems. Short-term access to niche talent and external expertise enables faster validation of ideas without long-term structural commitments.
From Prototypes to Production Readiness
As GCCs increasingly focus on R&D and innovation, service providers play a critical role in testing prototypes. By co-locating teams and providing real-time feedback, they help ensure that solutions are scalable, secure, and operationally viable.
The Rise of Co-Creation Models
The GCC model is evolving from outsourcing to co-creation. In this new paradigm, service providers contribute speed, accelerators, and specialised skills, while GCCs offer enterprise context, strategic alignment, and proximity to global leadership.
What Undercode Say:
The India GCC story is entering its most decisive chapter. The shift away from headcount obsession toward innovation-led value creation is not a trend, it is a survival strategy. AI, automation, and blockchain are rapidly commoditising routine work, and GCCs that cling to scale without substance risk irrelevance.
What stands out is the growing confidence of India-based leadership. Saying no to low-value work, rejecting night shifts, and building enterprise-grade platforms without waiting for headquarters approval reflect a maturity that was rare a decade ago. These centres are no longer execution arms. They are decision-making nodes.
Equally important is the redefinition of partnerships. The old binary of GCC versus service provider has collapsed. In its place is a layered ecosystem where outcomes matter more than ownership. Service providers bring battle-tested experience, mistake avoidance, and operational muscle. GCCs bring strategic depth, domain mastery, and innovation ambition.
The winners will be those who treat their GCCs as core business assets rather than cost centres. Selectivity, not scale, will define leadership. Centres that embed AI deeply, invest in talent quality, and align tightly with enterprise outcomes will shape the next decade of global operations.
🔍 Fact Checker Results
✅ India employs roughly 40% of its IT and tech workforce within GCCs
✅ AI adoption is accelerating across pharma and financial services GCCs
❌ Headcount growth alone no longer guarantees GCC sustainability
📊 Prediction
🚀 India’s GCCs will increasingly lead global innovation mandates, not just support them
📉 Commoditised roles will decline as AI-driven automation accelerates
🌐 Co-creation models between GCCs and service providers will become the dominant enterprise structure
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References:
Reported By: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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