Reliance Industries, Adani Group, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL) and Bank of Baroda are among Indian entities that have set up such centers locally in the past two to four years.Foreign companies are not the only ones setting up Global Capability Centers (GCCs) in India to provide centralized support to their businesses. Major Indian companies are also building such facilities, often to boost their technological capabilities.
Reliance Industries, Adani Group, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL) and Bank of Baroda are among Indian entities that have set up such centers locally in the past two to four years.
Indian companies are estimated to have set up around 50 GCCs in recent years in sectors such as telecom, financial services and automotive, said Arindam Sen, GCC leader and partner for media, entertainment and telecommunications at EY India.
“Companies are growing in size and scale, and the businesses they operate in are forcing them to think in this direction; otherwise they start duplicating resources,” he said.
“To make things more streamlined and adopt a leaner model for the sectors and regions they operate in, they have taken a page from multinationals. That is the main motivation,” said Senator.
Mature companies also recognize the need for a robust, centralized technology strategy and talent in a world where rapid technology assessment is disrupting and transforming businesses, experts say. These companies do not necessarily label these facilities as GCCs. Such units are often referred to as technology centers, innovation/R&D laboratories, or centers of excellence. The purpose they serve is similar to that of the GCCs.
Some of these companies are setting up centralized facilities in small towns and also in Gujarat’s GIFT City, due to low costs, availability of talent and lower turnover, say industry experts.
On September 24, Adani Enterprises, one of India’s largest conglomerates, set up a wholly owned subsidiary, Adani GCC Pvt Ltd, in Ahmedabad.
This will provide business transformation services and back-office services, including finance and accounts, human resources, IT and ITeS, on a shared basis to group companies, Adani Enterprises said in a regulatory filing.
Drug manufacturer Dr. Reddy’s inaugurated a 70,000 sq ft biologics facility at Genome Valley in Hyderabad for its group company, Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services, in June.
In August, Reliance Industries said it is also going big on innovation and expanding its R&D in India. Bank of Baroda, a public sector lender, has a wholly owned subsidiary, Baroda Sun Technologies, which is working on the bank’s digital transformation and acting as an innovation catalyst and incubator for new technologies.
These facilities may not be on the scale of an IT company, Sen said. “But these large companies could grow their workforce significantly and operate in a very efficient manner. The investments are already pouring in.”
GCC Capital
“Traditionally, it was global companies setting up GCCs in India, but now we are seeing Indian enterprises embracing this powerful model,” said Lalit Ahuja, founder and managing director of ANSR, which helps companies set up GCCs in India. “This shift highlights the transformative potential of the GCC framework – not only for optimizing operations, but also for delivering value and strategic growth. One of the key benefits of Indian companies setting up GCCs is the ability to tap into the global talent pool traditionally hired by multinationals.”
ANSR has worked with about 10 Indian companies to set up their GCCs here, he said.
Hubs like Coimbatore and Ahmedabad are becoming especially attractive for companies looking to set up GCCs, due to incentives from state governments, presence of established educational institutions and availability of highly skilled talent, along with lower costs compared to the metros. experts.
As the global capital of the GCC, India is currently home to over 1,700 GCCs, approximately 17% of such centers worldwide. These facilities employ approximately 1.9 million people.
The number of GCCs is expected to increase to 2,100 to 2,200 and the workforce to 2.5 to 2.8 million by 2030, according to a Nasscom-Zinnov India GCC landscape report released in September. By then, their share of the Indian IT industry’s revenue is estimated to grow to $99-105 billion from $64.6 billion last year.
But local companies may not benefit much from the cost arbitrage that drives offshore entities to set up GCCs in India, said an expert from one of the Big 4 consultancy firms. “So productivity per unit dollar spent has to go down. For this, companies from their own country must use technology at scale to make the cost-benefit analysis meaningful.”
