Global Capability Centres

India’s GCC opportunity will be shaped by the strength of its talent ecosystem. What is encouraging is the momentum already being created through initiatives across government, academia and industry. The focus now should be on bringing these efforts together in a coordinated manner to build future-ready talent at scale. With a strong foundation already in place, the outlook for India’s GCC sector remains highly promising.

In the past 18 months, leading IT firms have rapidly institutionalised GCC and GVIC units, accelerating focus on this opportunity. What began as a hedge against revenue shift is now a scale play. By transforming offshore centres into BOT driven GCCs, firms are unlocking capacity, capability, and long-term growth.

As India’s Global Capability Centre story enters its most consequential chapter, Pune is emerging as a compelling destination for organisations looking to establish and scale future-ready capability centres.

With its strong ecosystem spanning talent, infrastructure, and innovation, Pune offers a unique opportunity to go beyond execution and build centres that deliver enterprise-wide value and transformation for global organisations.

It is not without reason that GCC site as a strong pillar of our Viksit Bharat agenda and is very strong economic driver of our nation. Amidst the global headwinds we see today, in India the GCC model continues to offer a very promising answer to what global enterprises are grappling with. The model presents efficiency benefits, and now with AI being a very disruptive force, how do you actually enable product development, research, core processes from GCCs is where the theme is.

The next wave of GCC growth is no longer just back office, but increasingly about core business processes and unlocking enterprise value at a very different leve

India is a good solution for many global organisations, especially those struggling to grow, or have profitability concerns. Global enterprises are moving to modernise their tech stack, build clean and well-managed data to create AI solutions. build platforms that will straddle across the value chain. India can do all of that. Many more players will come in. But going forward, with AI, the model may be different. They will not need armies of people.

Race to the top for GCCs is the opportunity that AI presents in terms of driving some very core innovation, something really transformative and making an impact...like on drug discovery, crunching product life cycles, what you take to market, developing new platforms and tools that will enable you to open your market to new customers or impact customer experience in a bigger way.

GCCs today are deeply embedded in core product development, while also playing a critical role in regulatory frameworks and safety protocols.

The extent of influence a GCC commands depends on multiple factors such as scope, leadership sponsorship, maturity, and the level of empowerment granted. When these elements come together, GCCs move beyond execution and earn the right to architect, influence, and direct business priorities.

Organisations are increasingly treating GCCs as their core hubs for cognitive strength. A notable shift is taking place. Earlier, GCCs were largely viewed through the lens of scale. With AI, the benefits do not remain confined to the centre alone. They flow across the organisation and often to the headquarters as well. This is changing how value is created and shared.

Leading GCCs are already investing deeply in AI platforms and capability areas. If the wider organisation wants to fully tap into the cognitive advantages of AI, the work needs to happen where there is the clearest view of the enterprise. GCCs are emerging as one of the strongest places to drive this.

Rachit Chhokera

Partner, DT-Cyber Strategy and Govn
KPMG in India

Cross-border data governance is where GCCs face real complexiity. Some of the key friction points that need deeper attention.

• Global vs local rules:Aligning HQ‑led data policies with country‑specific privacy, retention, and localisation laws
• Data visibility: Achieving accurate data discovery and lineage across systems to prove compliance end-to-end
• Third-party risk: Governing vendors and processors operating across borders, with inconsistent controls and oversight.