India’s GCCs Are Moving Beyond Technology
- The “non-tech” GCC is becoming a misnomer
- Experience is becoming a strategic asset
- AI is widening participation
- Magnum illustrates the new model
- Ownership matters more than headcount
- Geography is following the mandate
- Policy is becoming part of the equation
- Cybersecurity shows the shift from cost to capability
- Physical AI could create a new category
- GCCs need to be measured differently
- There will not be one GCC model
- India’s strategic opportunity
For much of the past two decades, India’s Global Capability Centre story has been defined by technology.
GCCs were associated with software engineering, IT services, analytics, finance operations and, increasingly, digital transformation. That description is now incomplete.
India’s GCC ecosystem is moving towards something broader: global business platforms that combine technology, operations, domain expertise, artificial intelligence and direct ownership of business outcomes.
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The new Global Business Solutions Centre established by The Magnum Ice Cream Company in Pune offers a clear example. Inaugurated on September 4, the centre is expected to create more than 1,000 direct jobs and will use AI, automation and advanced logistics technologies to support global manufacturing, distribution and customer-service operations.
This is not simply a technology centre. It is a business operating platform.
That distinction could define the next phase of India’s GCC evolution.
The “non-tech” GCC is becoming a misnomer
New data from Quess points to the scale of this shift. Non-tech GCC roles in India are projected to reach around 500,000 by 2028. Sales operations, finance and business operations already account for more than 60% of non-tech GCC demand, while demand for these roles grew 17.2% year on year during the first half of 2026.
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Yet the term “non-tech” increasingly obscures the nature of this work.
A finance function inside a modern GCC may use AI-enabled forecasting, automated controls and advanced analytics. A sales-operations team may manage global customer-intelligence platforms. A supply-chain team may use machine learning to optimise inventory. A compliance organisation may rely on automation and data models to monitor risk.
Technology is no longer confined to a separate IT department. It is becoming embedded in business functions.
The more accurate category is therefore not “tech” versus “non-tech”, but digitally enabled global business capability.
Experience is becoming a strategic asset
The talent profile is changing alongside the operating model.
Professionals with seven to 12 years of experience accounted for nearly 60% of non-tech GCC demand in 2025, according to Quess data reported this week. This group is projected to reach roughly 250,000 professionals in 2026, growing at a three-year compound annual growth rate of 21%.
That shift says something important about the maturity of the ecosystem.
A GCC that performs clearly defined tasks can rely heavily on junior talent. A GCC that owns business processes requires professionals who understand context, exercise judgement, manage stakeholders, assess risk and take responsibility for outcomes.
Experience is therefore becoming a strategic resource.
AI is widening participation
Artificial intelligence may accelerate this transition.
Historically, many business functions depended on specialist technology teams to translate operational requirements into digital systems. Generative and agentic AI can increasingly allow domain experts to interact directly with technology and automate parts of their work.
This does not eliminate engineers. It changes the composition of the team.
A future business platform may bring together domain experts, AI tools, data, specialist engineers, automation,process leaders, and global accountability.
This creates a broader pool of professionals who can participate in technology-enabled transformation.
The next GCC may not be organised around a technology department. It may be organised around a business capability with technology built into it.
Magnum illustrates the new model
The Magnum Pune centre is significant because its mandate cuts across traditional organisational boundaries.
Its scope includes manufacturing, distribution, customer service, logistics, AI, and automation.
Its value will ultimately depend not on how many people it employs, but on how much of the company’s global operating model it can influence.
That is a different definition of GCC maturity.
Ownership matters more than headcount
There is an important difference between supporting a global process and owning a global capability.
Ownership may involve several dimensions:
- Decision rights: Can the India team make material decisions?
- Accountability: Is it responsible for outcomes rather than outputs?
- Roadmap control: Can it decide what should be built or improved?
- Budget influence: Can it allocate resources against priorities?
- Intellectual property: Does it create proprietary technology, processes or other IP?
- Global impact: Do its decisions affect the multinational’s performance?
- Leadership authority: Does it have senior leaders who influence the wider enterprise?
A GCC does not need to control all of these areas to be strategically important. But the more responsibility it assumes, the deeper its global mandate becomes.
This is a more meaningful measure of GCC maturity than employee numbers alone.
Geography is following the mandate
The shift is also changing India’s GCC geography.
Quess data indicates that Tier-2 and emerging locations now account for approximately 35% of non-tech GCC demand. Bengaluru remains the leading location, with about 25% of total non-tech demand, followed by Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune.
This does not mean Bengaluru is losing relevance. It means that GCC capability can increasingly be distributed across locations.
A company may retain senior technology leadership in Bengaluru while placing a business-operations capability in another city. Another may build engineering capacity in Coimbatore. A manufacturing-focused organisation may choose Pune because of its industrial ecosystem.
The future GCC may therefore be a network rather than a single building.
Policy is becoming part of the equation
Government policy is also making GCC decisions more complex.
Budget 2026 proposed a common 15.5% safe-harbour margin for a consolidated IT-services category covering software development, IT-enabled services, knowledge-process outsourcing and contract research and development. The proposal also raised the eligibility threshold from ₹300 crore to ₹2,000 crore and introduced automated approvals with five-year continuity.
For multinational companies, such measures matter because global capability decisions are influenced by more than talent.
Companies also assess:
- tax certainty,
- infrastructure,
- compliance,
- incentives,
- data regulation,
- energy availability, and
- ecosystem depth.
The GCC is no longer only a corporate operating decision. It is increasingly part of a country’s economic-policy strategy.
Cybersecurity shows the shift from cost to capability
N-able’s Bengaluru GCC provides another example.
The cybersecurity company launched its India centre with more than 100 employees and plans to increase its local workforce by at least 50% by the end of 2026. The centre’s remit includes engineering, product management, user experience and security operations.
CEO John Pagliuca has framed the investment around capability rather than cost.
That reflects an important change in India’s proposition.
For the most advanced GCCs, the question is no longer simply:
Where can we reduce cost?
It is increasingly:
Where can we find the capability to build and operate this globally?
Physical AI could create a new category
The boundaries are expanding further into physical AI.
Instawork’s India operation is moving into robotics-related data and operational work. The company says it aims to facilitate 20 million hours of robot work in 2026 and has trained approximately 20,000 people for robotics-related operations.
This points towards an emerging GCC category that sits outside the traditional framework: physical-AI capability.
The same model could apply to autonomous vehicles, industrial robotics, computer vision and intelligent manufacturing. India’s role may extend beyond software development to the human, operational and data infrastructure required to make physical AI function at scale.
GCCs need to be measured differently
The industry has become highly skilled at measuring centre count, employee numbers, office space, hiring and investment.
Those indicators remain useful, but they no longer tell the whole story.
The next generation of GCC measurement should also examine:
- business functions owned,
- global decision rights,
- AI deployment,
- product responsibility,
- intellectual-property creation,
- experienced leadership,
- business outcomes, and
- geographic capability.
These measures would offer a clearer picture of what India’s GCC ecosystem actually contributes to the global enterprise.
There will not be one GCC model
There is a risk in assuming that every GCC follows the same path:
Cost centre → shared services → technology centre → innovation centre → global headquarters
In practice, GCCs develop in different ways.
Some will remain primarily transactional. Others will specialise in technology, own products, combine business operations with AI, work through external technology partners, or become integrated manufacturing and research platforms.
The future is not one GCC model. It is a portfolio of operating models.
India’s strategic opportunity
India’s next advantage will not come only from its large engineering workforce. It will come from the ability to combine:
- technology,
- domain expertise,
- experienced talent,
- AI, and
- ownership of global business outcomes.
That combination is harder to replicate.
The Magnum centre demonstrates the opportunity in consumer business. N-able shows how it applies to cybersecurity. LPL illustrates its relevance in financial services. The growth of Tier-2 cities shows that the opportunity is spreading geographically. Rising non-tech GCC demand demonstrates that it is also spreading across the enterprise.
The central question for India’s GCC ecosystem is changing.
It is no longer:
How many people can India employ for global companies?
It is:
How much of the global enterprise can India actually run?
That is the next chapter of India’s GCC story—and a much larger opportunity.
