India’s Global Capability Centre (GCC) industry is approaching a significant milestone. But the most important development is not the size of the market. It is the changing role these centres play inside multinational corporations.
- The scale of India’s GCC industry
- From cost advantage to capability ownership
- Artificial intelligence could accelerate the transition
- The leadership question: Who owns the decisions?
- Growth will also test India’s operating model
- What to watch next
- 1. Ownership of technology
- 2. The location of decision-making authority
- 3. The commercial contribution of the work
- The FutureIsNow view
For years, India’s GCC proposition rested on a straightforward equation: global companies could access a large pool of skilled professionals at a competitive cost. That model supported the growth of technology delivery, finance operations, customer support, and business services.
Today, the industry is increasingly associated with engineering, research and development, data, artificial intelligence, and product development.
The distinction matters. A centre that executes work designed elsewhere occupies a different position in a multinational company’s value chain from one that develops products, builds proprietary technology, and influences global business decisions. India’s next GCC opportunity will depend on how far its centres can move towards the latter model.
The scale of India’s GCC industry
A NASSCOM–Zinnov report announced in July 2026 estimated that India had approximately 2,117 GCCs operating across 3,728 units, employing around 2.36 million professionals. It put the industry’s annual market revenue at $98.4 billion for FY2026.
These figures describe an industry that has become central to the operations of multinational businesses. But the number of centres, operating units, employees, and market revenue measure different aspects of the ecosystem. They should not be treated as interchangeable indicators of growth.
Nor does a larger GCC automatically imply a more strategically important one. A centre handling routine back-office processes and a centre responsible for engineering a global product may both contribute to India’s GCC statistics. Their influence on the parent company’s competitiveness, however, can be very different.
The next phase of growth will be measured by more than the number of centres established in India. It will also be measured by the complexity of the work performed, the decisions made locally, and the capabilities developed within the country.
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From cost advantage to capability ownership
The traditional GCC model was built around operational efficiency. Multinational companies established offshore operations to access talent, improve productivity, and manage costs. Over time, many centres expanded into more sophisticated functions, including technology development, analytics, cybersecurity, and research.
This evolution changes the economic proposition. When a centre manages routine operations, its value can be evaluated largely through service quality, productivity, and operating costs. When it develops a proprietary software platform, builds an AI capability, or owns an engineering function, its contribution becomes more closely connected to the company’s products and competitive position.
Cost efficiency has not become irrelevant. It is simply no longer a sufficient description of the opportunity. The strategic question for multinational corporations is whether their Indian centres can assume greater responsibility for outcomes that matter to the global business.
For GCC leaders, the corresponding challenge is to demonstrate that their teams can do more than deliver projects against requirements defined elsewhere. They must develop the technical depth, institutional knowledge, and decision-making authority required to own increasingly complex work.
This shift connects with a broader change in India’s technology economy explored in FutureIsNow’s analysis of India’s changing technology arbitrage.
Artificial intelligence could accelerate the transition
Artificial intelligence creates an opportunity for Indian GCCs to expand their role, but it also introduces a test of organisational maturity.
Global enterprises are exploring AI across software engineering, customer operations, finance, cybersecurity, analytics, and internal business processes. These initiatives require more than access to models and development tools. They require integration with enterprise systems, reliable data, security controls, domain knowledge, and mechanisms for evaluating performance.
GCCs that already possess deep knowledge of their parent companies’ systems and processes may be well positioned to contribute. They can potentially connect experimentation with implementation, helping move AI projects from demonstrations into operational environments.
The opportunity extends beyond deploying third-party AI tools. Some centres may develop reusable platforms, proprietary workflows, domain-specific applications, and engineering capabilities that can be deployed across global operations.
However, AI adoption and AI capability ownership are not the same. A team that implements an externally developed tool is performing a different role from one that builds and maintains a core AI platform or takes responsibility for its performance in production. The latter requires deeper technical capabilities, stronger governance, and sustained investment.
For India, the prize is not simply becoming a larger destination for enterprise AI implementation. It is becoming a place where multinational companies develop and control more of the technology that differentiates their businesses.
The leadership question: Who owns the decisions?
Technology capability alone will not determine how much strategic responsibility GCCs receive. Organisational authority matters just as much.
A centre may employ highly skilled engineers and researchers while still depending on headquarters for product priorities, architecture decisions, budgets, and final approvals. In such cases, sophisticated work does not necessarily translate into meaningful decision-making power.
The next stage of GCC development will require companies to reconsider how responsibility is distributed between headquarters and their Indian operations. Which product decisions can be made locally? Which engineering teams own outcomes rather than deliverables? Who controls AI infrastructure investments? Who is accountable for the performance of a platform developed in India?
These questions reveal whether a centre is becoming an integral part of the global business or simply expanding its portfolio of services.
For GCC leaders, this creates a management challenge: demonstrate value in terms that global business leaders recognise. That means connecting technology investment to measurable outcomes, such as product development speed, operational resilience, customer experience, revenue contribution, or productivity.
Headcount growth and the number of projects delivered are useful operational measures. They are not, by themselves, proof of strategic influence.
Growth will also test India’s operating model
An expanding GCC ecosystem places pressure on the capabilities that made India attractive in the first place. Access to skilled professionals remains important, but companies must also develop leadership depth, retain specialised talent, and build teams capable of managing increasingly complex responsibilities.
Infrastructure, cybersecurity, regulatory requirements, and the economics of technology investment will also influence where and how centres expand.
As more companies compete for advanced skills, the ability to develop talent internally becomes increasingly important. Organisations that rely exclusively on hiring experienced specialists may find it harder to scale distinctive capabilities sustainably.
The geographic distribution of GCC activity is another factor to watch. Expansion beyond established technology hubs could broaden the available talent pool, but location decisions will still depend on specialised skills, infrastructure, and the wider business ecosystem.
For policymakers, the opportunity is to support capabilities that attract high-value work, rather than treating the establishment of a GCC as the ultimate objective. For companies, the challenge is to ensure that expansion creates durable organisational advantages rather than simply adding capacity.
What to watch next
India’s GCC story is entering a phase in which the quality of growth matters as much as its scale. Three signals deserve particular attention.
1. Ownership of technology
Are Indian teams developing and maintaining core platforms, intellectual property, and AI capabilities, or primarily implementing systems designed elsewhere?
2. The location of decision-making authority
Are GCC leaders gaining responsibility for product strategy, architecture, investment, and business outcomes?
3. The commercial contribution of the work
Can centres demonstrate measurable improvements in revenue, productivity, resilience, or product performance rather than relying primarily on headcount and cost savings?
The FutureIsNow view
India’s GCC opportunity is no longer adequately described as a story of global companies moving work to a lower-cost location. The industry has developed the scale to support a more ambitious proposition: India as a location where multinational companies build technology, develop AI capabilities, and undertake work that directly shapes their global competitiveness.
But that outcome is not guaranteed by market growth. It depends on whether companies transfer meaningful responsibility to their Indian teams, whether those teams develop capabilities that are difficult to replicate, and whether their contribution can be demonstrated through business results.
The next milestone for India’s GCC industry should therefore not be defined only by how much revenue it generates or how many professionals it employs.
The more important question is how much of the global enterprise’s technology, intellectual property, and decision-making capability is being built and owned in India.
That is the shift worth watching.
