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India’s GCCs: From Cost Centers to Innovation Hubs
India’s GCCs: From Cost Centers to Innovation Hubs

March 5, 2025

GCC

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Authored by: Gaurav Gupta, SVP of Delivery - Xoriant

Global Capability Centers (GCCs) in India have undergone a massive transformation. Once viewed as offshore cost-saving units, they are now driving product engineering, digital transformation, and AI-led innovation. With the Indian GCC market expected to surge from $64.6 billion to over $105 billion by 2030, this shift isn’t just an opportunity—it’s a necessity.

Yet, many legacy GCCs remain stuck in a traditional “cost center” mindset, focusing on IT services, back-office operations, and support functions. While these roles are important, the real game-changer lies in evolving into strategic hubs for business transformation, AI adoption, and platform engineering.

The next wave of GCC success will belong to those who move beyond operational efficiency and build platforms for growth—leveraging cloud, AI, and automation to create impact, not just cut costs.

Why Legacy GCC Models Are Falling Behind

For decades, enterprises set up GCCs in India to capitalize on cost efficiencies and access skilled talent. But that playbook is now outdated. According to the Economic Times, GCC hiring in India jumped 46% in FY25, but the demand isn’t for legacy IT services—it’s for advanced engineering, AI, and digital innovation.

What’s Driving This Shift?

Tech-Led Value Creation – Businesses expect GCCs to deliver more than operations. They need engineering-led teams that build AI-driven platforms and products.
Faster Adoption of Emerging Technologies – AI, GenAI, cloud-native architectures, and predictive analytics are no longer optional; they’re fundamental.
Closer Business Alignment – Companies now recognize that a GCC should function as an extension of their core innovation team, not just an offshore support unit.
Talent Beyond Operations – Instead of process-driven work, modern GCCs require digital engineers, AI specialists, and platform innovators.

Building GCCs for Impact: Real-World Success Stories

The best GCCs aren’t just extensions of global teams; they’re strategic growth engines. Here’s how enterprises are making that shift.

  • Transforming a Mortgage Platform’s GCC into an Innovation Hub

A leading mortgage platform serving 3,000+ lenders in the U.S. partnered with us to upgrade their India GCC. What started as a 500-member IT support center expanded into a 2,000+ strong product engineering powerhouse across Pune and Hyderabad. Through AI adoption, automation, and a Center of Excellence (CoE) with 300+ specialists, this GCC became an innovation hub, sustaining continuous product releases for over six years.

  • Scaling Engineering Capabilities for a Global Fintech Leader

A global provider of financial crime, risk, compliance, and customer experience solutions needed to accelerate AI-driven product innovation. They turned to us for expertise in automation, platform development, and AI integration. Our dedicated 175+ FTE team in their Pune GCC wasn’t just an extended workforce—it led 25+ strategic projects, driving faster product evolution and digital transformation.

The Takeaway: GCCs Must Evolve into Product Engineering Hubs

These examples highlight a fundamental truth—GCCs are no longer just about cost savings. The ones that thrive are those that own product roadmaps, drive automation, and deliver measurable business outcomes.

The Xoriant Approach: Engineering Platforms for Growth

Unlike traditional GCC models, we embed AI, cloud, and automation into the core of GCCs, ensuring they are not just service centers but digital innovation engines.

  • AI-Powered Transformation – Automation, machine learning, and predictive analytics that make GCCs more intelligent.
  • Cloud-First Architecture – Scalable, secure, and resilient digital platforms built for agility.
  • Next-Gen Talent Development – Building expertise in digital engineering, cybersecurity, and AI/ML to future-proof GCCs.
  • Flexible GCC Models – From Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) to hybrid and fully managed GCCs, we tailor solutions for business impact.

The Future of GCCs: What Leaders Must Do Now

To stay ahead, GCCs must:

  • Shift from cost-cutting to value creation – Efficiency is important, but agility and business impact matter more.
  • Embed AI, cloud, and automation at the core – These technologies should drive every aspect of GCC operations.
  • Invest in top talent – The future belongs to GCCs that foster innovation, not just execution.
  • Adopt a platform-driven mindset – Moving beyond siloed services to scalable digital ecosystems is key.
  • Collaborate with innovation partners – The right strategic partnerships can accelerate transformation.

Author Bio:

Gaurav Gupta is a GCC transformation leader with 24+ years of experience in scaling and evolving Global Capability Centers across BFS, Healthcare, and Hi-Tech. As SVP at Xoriant, he drives engineering-led innovation, AI adoption, and platform-driven growth to help enterprises transition from cost centers to strategic hubs.


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Xoriant is a Silicon Valley-headquartered digital product engineering, software development, and technology services firm with offices in the USA,UK, Ireland, Mexico, Canada and Asia. From startups to the Fortune 100, we deliver innovative solutions, accelerating time to market and ensuring our clients' competitiveness in industries like BFSI, High Tech, Healthcare, Manufacturing and Retail. Across all our technology focus areas-digital product engineering, DevOps, cloud, infrastructure, and security, big data and analytics, data engineering, management and governance -every solution we develop benefits from our product engineering pedigree. It also includes successful methodologies, framework components, and accelerators for rapidly solving important client challenges. For 30 years and counting, we have taken great pride in our long-lasting, deep relationships with our clients.

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