How Global Capability Centers (GCCs) Are Reshaping India’s Workforce Landscape

This article has been contributed by Mr. Saurabh Sharma, Founder and CEO at Agile 360 Degree

Once seen as back-office extensions, India’s GCCs are now scripting the digital playbooks for global giants like SAP, Microsoft, and Walmart. These centers are now driving innovation, engineering, and transformation programs globally. In the process, they are not just expanding in scale; they are reshaping India’s workforce across skill sets, cities, and sectors. India currently hosts over 1,600 GCCs, employing approximately 1.9 million professionals. Collectively, these centers contributed $64.6 billion in revenue as of 2024. The sector is projected to expand to $105 billion by 2030, with around 2,400 GCCs employing over 2.8 million people. In the last three years, the number of Global Capability Centers (GCCs) in India has significantly increased, with many relocating from China or Eastern Europe due to cost pressures and geopolitical shifts.

This momentum is not limited to tech majors. BFSI, pharma, aerospace, retail, and even consumer goods firms are expanding or establishing centers. Companies like PepsiCo, Walmart, Bosch, and Novo Nordisk are increasingly tasking their India centers with core digital and product mandates, areas that were earlier tightly held by headquarters.

The Talent Premium: A Boon or Bane?

While GCCs are upgrading India’s workforce in many ways, they are also contributing to wage inflation in key skill areas. According to industry data, salaries for AI/ML engineers and cloud architects have gone up by 18–22% over the past 2 years, pricing out many startups and mid-sized firms from the talent race. This "talent premium" may also lead to a hollowing out of traditional sectors, unless there is broader ecosystem-level investment in training, academia, and cross-sector collaboration.

While it may be good for the professionals, but at an overall level, it might increase the cost and make India a less competitive space for GCC in future.

Rise of Tier-2 Powerhouses. Will it work?

With rising costs and talent saturation in cities like Bengaluru and Pune, Global Capability Centers (GCCs) are setting up operations in Tier-2 locations such as Coimbatore, Jaipur, Trivandrum, and Bhubaneswar. These centres are not just for support, they are helping companies access new talent pools, reduce attrition, and spread operations more evenly. Examples include Hitachi Vantara’s engineering center in Coimbatore and Wells Fargo’s growth in Hyderabad and Chennai.

However, this shift brings challenges. Infrastructure gaps, limited faculty strength in technical institutes, and fewer partnerships between industry and academia in these regions can slow progress. But, this trend is likely to stay due to rising cost of operations in metropolitan cities in India.

The Rise of New-Age Tech Talent Blueprint. Is it for Real?

The kind of talent GCCs need today looks very different from a few years ago. These centres, once focused mostly on routine IT services, now look for professionals who can combine technical skills with business understanding and design thinking. Roles in AI, analytics, DevOps, and cybersecurity are becoming core, pushing many professionals to take up microcredentials and targeted certifications to stay relevant. Much of this shift is being driven by the growing use of Artificial Intelligence. According to the EY India GCC Pulse Survey 2024, nearly 70% of GCCs are already investing in generative AI. Around 78% are training their teams for it, and 37% are piloting real use cases. The focus is moving beyond experimentation, with AI being used to improve how teams are managed and how risks are handled.

SAP Labs India is a strong example of this shift. Its Bengaluru center developed ‘Joule,’ a generative AI copilot designed to improve user experience across SAP’s cloud applications. By responding to natural language prompts, Joule helps automate workflows and deliver real-time insights, now embedded across SAP platforms globally. Hence, there’s a clear move toward trusting Indian talent with more responsibility. This reflects a growing comfort with Indian professionals who bring a mix of operational knowledge, global exposure, and experience with digital systems.

But adapting to this pace of change isn’t easy. The demand for new skills is rising faster than many companies can train for. Several GCCs have indicated that their mid-level employees will need serious reskilling to continue working on digital-first projects.

Workforce Diversity: A Rising Priority?

Another area where GCCs are making a noticeable difference is workforce diversity. Compared to IT services and other sectors, they are ahead in implementing structured diversity and inclusion strategies. This includes return-to-work programs, inclusive hiring practices, and leadership development pathways. According to a TeamLease Digital report titled Women at the Heart of India’s Digital Evolution, the share of women in the tech workforce within GCCs is expected to grow from 25% today to 35% by 2027.

Conclusion

Global Capability Centers have moved well beyond cost efficiency. They are now growth centers, driving digital initiatives, developing leaders, creating employment in new geographies, and redefining what global operations can look like. But their influence is not unidirectional. As they raise the bar for talent, salaries, and skill expectations, they are also creating ripple effects across India’s broader workforce ecosystem, bringing both opportunities and challenges. India’s GCC revolution isn’t just rewriting job roles, it’s redrawing the map of global operations; the question now is whether the rest of the ecosystem can keep pace or be left behind. 

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