India's Global Capability Centres (GCCs) — in-house technology and operations hubs set up by multinational corporations — have taken the lead as one of the fastest-growing segments of the country's technology sector, outpacing the traditional IT services sector on several metrics.
Behind the trend driving the rapid expansion of GCCs in India is the corporate need for control. Industry stakeholders say that the shift from outsourcing services to relying on in-house capabilities allows multinational companies to better manage intellectual property, proprietary technologies and sensitive data.
India, currently the world's largest GCC hub with over 2,100 centres, employs around 2.36 million people while generating nearly $100 billion in revenue, driven largely by the country's deep and diverse talent pool, according to a report by Nasscom and Zinnov. By 2030, 2,500 GCCs are projected to employ 3.5 million.
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What is driving the GCC boom?
According to Rohan Lobo, Partner and GCC Industry Leader at Deloitte, “The original logic for outsourcing which is cost arbitrage has stopped being the only deciding factor. Benefits such as flexibility, ownership of IP, data protection, long-term talent, and institutional memory are increasingly being considered additionally to cost.”
Explaining what has accelerated this shift, Lobo said three factors have sharpened the trend over the last 18 months. “First, AI and data — if a company's competitive edge is going to be built on proprietary models trained on proprietary data, you don't want that sitting inside a vendor's shared delivery centre. Second, regulation — global data and AI rules are tightening, making keeping processing and model development inside a captive entity cleaner for compliance than handing it to a third party. Third, the work itself has moved up the value chain — over half of India's GCCs now drive portfolio and transformation work rather than back-office support. GCCs are better suited for product-ownership mandates.”
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Industry executives say India’s talent pool is also playing a key role in strengthening the GCC ecosystem. Himanshu Gandhi, Site General Manager at Cohere Health India, which operates a GCC in Hyderabad, explained that the availability of the right talent is enabling GCCs to bet on delivering capabilities out of India, whereas IT services are sometimes falling behind due to automation and emerging AI trends.
“Multinational organisations are increasingly looking to retain greater control over core functions such as AI, cybersecurity, digital engineering, data analytics, product development, and customer experience transformation. This is not simply a hiring trend, but a broader evolution in operating models, where GCCs are becoming deeply integrated into global innovation plans and long-term enterprise strategy,” Sridhar Krishnan, Chief Operating Officer, MOAR Advisory, told ET Online.
