In the current economic dullness, a remarkably vibrant sector often escapes the notice of Delhi policy wonks. Its best manifestations are in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune, and its contributions are masked by export categorisation. This sector comprises global capability centres (GCCs), the tech and operations hubs of multinational corporations. India currently hosts around 2,400 such centres, employing over 3.5 million people, and new ones are established every week.
Misconceptions About GCCs
Some months ago, a government advisor remarked that GCCs merely benefit from India's talent pool, with little reciprocal gain. More recently, a Delhi-based commentator claimed that India's talent 'slaves away' in these centres, constituting a brain drain at home. Such views miss the mark. GCC employees are among the best compensated in India, and their HR practices eclipse those of domestic companies. For instance, Goldman Sachs offers a six-month paternity leave. Work typically spans five days a week, with two days working from home. Their campuses are world-class; some CEOs have noted that their India offices surpass their global headquarters.
World-Class Work Environments
Workspaces are designed to inspire. Cisco features an Antoni Gaudi-inspired floor, while SAP has recreated the natural environments of Kerala, Goa, and Rajasthan in its courtyard spaces. Almost all GCCs boast best-in-class gyms, entertainment floors with gaming options, and multiple catering outlets offering diverse cuisines. In some, food is complimentary from breakfast to dinner. Google's free cuisine rivals gourmet restaurants.
Why Such Pampering?
Companies worldwide need to digitally transform, requiring hundreds or thousands of techies. No other country offers the quantity and quality of talent that India does. Infosys and others created beautiful campuses to attract youth. When GCCs arrived, they had to offer more to compete for the same talent, and they could afford it due to their parent companies' budgets. Some HR practices are legacies from headquarters, mandatorily extended globally.
Increasingly, India offices are involved in cutting-edge work. Innovation requires inspiring, collaborative spaces to attract top talent. At Walmart, GCCs improved cataloguing of 1.2 billion products and built an internal AI super-agent. Lowe's conceptualised one of the fastest-growing retail ad networks in the US. Goldman Sachs developed a low-latency trading platform. JPMorgan's India centre is core to building payment infrastructure and data analytics. GE's India centre contributed 60-70% of the team designing the GE9X engine for Boeing's 777X. Shell's India centre developed fuel for Ducati's MotoGP races. SAP's CTO noted that their India centre is rethinking the entire technology stack to be AI-native. Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Microsoft, and Google's India centres are central to their operations. A global luxury car maker stated that if their headquarters shut down, the India centre could keep operations going.
India's Role in Global Digital Transformation
What China did for manufacturing, India is doing for digital transformation, a market estimated between $1 trillion and $2.6 trillion, growing at over 20% CAGR. GCC revenue estimates have focused on high-end tech work, but they also handle IT, finance, HR, legal, procurement, supply chain, marketing, and customer service. In finance, they manage trade settlements, risk management, regulatory reporting, treasury, and financial planning.
Two years ago, consultancy Wizmatic estimated GCC exports at $150 billion for 2024-25, about 4.5% of India's GDP, with annual growth between 11% and 24%. This explains why services exports have grown to equal merchandise exports, and why states like Karnataka report double-digit software exports. GCCs are the engine of India's tech sector and exports, accounting for over 40% of Grade A office space leasing and driving consumption through high employee compensation.
Policy Recommendations
All this has happened without much government intervention, barring historical investment in engineering institutions. Policymakers should build a policy around GCCs to attract more and transform core areas, similar to China's FDI strategy. GCCs can help with curricula and research in academic institutions, but they are not doing enough. At a TOI event, an IISc professor criticised a GCC leader for lack of partnership. GCCs need robust startup incubation programmes, encouragement to move to smaller towns, and incentives for employees to start ventures. Founders of Flipkart and many deeptech startups emerged from GCCs. A carrot-and-stick policy is needed, as GCCs need India as much as India needs them.
