GCC | Capabilities

India already has a substantial base from which to build. The Nasscom-Zinnov India GCC Landscape Report 2024 estimated that the country had more than 1,740 GCCs and over 2,975 centers in FY2024, employing more than 1.9 million professionals and generating approximately $64.6 billion in revenue. Today, almost nine out of ten GCCs operate as multifunctional centers supporting technology, operations and product engineering. Engineering, research and development is expanding particularly quickly, with ER&D GCCs growing 1.3 times faster than the overall GCC ecosystem.

The capability mix is changing with it. The EY GCC Pulse Survey 2025 reinforced this shift. Among surveyed India-based GCCs, 83% were investing in GenAI, 58% in agentic AI and another 29% planned to scale agentic AI over the following year. Data strategy adoption had reached 67%, while business intelligence stood at 86%. Importantly, 81% were upskilling internal teams on GenAI, 63% prioritizing AI and machine learning, 54% focusing on data engineering and business intelligence (BI), and 66% deep domain expertise

The emerging capability therefore includes AI, GenAI, cloud, cybersecurity and advanced analytics as central to the next generation of technology capability, GCCs are increasingly integrating R&D, infrastructure, cybersecurity, application development and data engineering.

The capabilities being built

• AI and intelligent automation are among the most visible areas of investment, but organizations are moving from AI experimentation towards AI engineering, machine learning, GenAI and agentic AI capabilities that can be embedded into products, processes and enterprise platforms. EY's finding that two-thirds of GCCs are creating dedicated innovation teams or incubation programs is significant: organizations are building structures to take ideas towards global deployment.
• Data engineering and business intelligence are becoming equally fundamental. AI ambitions depend on the quality, accessibility, and governance of enterprise data. The growing emphasis on data strategy, engineering and BI reflects the realization that AI capability cannot be built independently of the data architecture beneath it.
• Product engineering and R&D represent another important shift. GCCs are increasingly involved in designing products, owning product architecture, developing software, and creating intellectual property.
• Cybersecurity and digital resilience are also becoming capabilities in their own right, moving beyond operating security tools towards deeper engineering, risk management, and enterprise resilience.
• Domain-led capabilities are gaining importance alongside technology. As GCCs take responsibility for end-to-end processes and business outcomes, technical capability needs to be combined with knowledge of the business it serves. The emerging model is increasingly hybrid: technology combined with finance, healthcare, supply chain, risk, operations, or product expertise.
• Global leadership and decision-making may be the least visible but most consequential capability. EY reports that 52% of surveyed GCCs already have shared accountability for global decisions, while 20% are moving towards full ownership from India for selected functions. This changes the talent requirement: the organization needs leaders who can influence global stakeholders, make decisions across geographies, and own outcomes.

The P.R GLOlinks’ take

From our perspective, the most important development is not any individual skill. It is the combination of capabilities being assembled in India. AI specialists working alongside product engineers create one capability. Add data engineering, cybersecurity, domain expertise, product leadership, and global decision rights and the nature of the organization changes. It begins to look less like a delivery center and more like an enterprise capability hub.

This is where talent strategies need to become more deliberate. The conventional approach of identify roles, determine numbers, and beginning hiring works when the objective is capacity. It becomes less effective when the objective is capability.

P.R GLOlinks adds value

We design capability backwards from the outcome the enterprise wants India to own. If the mandate is global product engineering, the talent model will differ from one designed around application maintenance. If the GCC is expected to develop AI products, the organization will require a different combination of data, engineering, product, domain, and governance capabilities than a center focused on AI-enabled process automation.

For newer GCCs, the challenge is to build beyond the initial team: establishing leadership, specialist career paths, internal mobility, and the ability to attract niche talent as the mandate expands. For established GCCs, the question is whether the existing talent architecture can support the next mandate.

We see our role as connecting the enterprise's strategic ambition with the talent and organizational capability required to make that ambition executable in India.

What enterprises should be thinking about now

“What should India become capable of owning for our global enterprise over the next three to five years?” and this answer should determine the capabilities to build, the talent to attract, the leadership model to establish and the organizational architecture to put around them.