From business case, entity design and office build-out to hiring and governance, we help de-risk each step so your India Global Capability Center (GCC) can go live quickly, remain compliant, and deliver durable value over time.
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Once you've decided India is the right move, we lead and coordinate every stage of the GCC lifecycle-pressure-testing the business case, shaping the legal and location model, securing space and infrastructure, and standing up leadership and core teams.
On the ground, we help you design and operate the HR, payroll, benefits, vendor and lease management, and information-security frameworks your board and control functions would expect of a regulated subsidiary.
Over time, we support the center's evolution from a basic delivery hub into a trusted in-house platform for talent, innovation and scaled execution across your business-anchored in economics, governance and risk standards that are designed to withstand scrutiny.
We define the strategic, legal and economic case for your India GCC, and translate it into a structure, scope and governance model suitable for board consideration and approval.
We design and oversee the legal, tax and regulatory foundation with a focus on a clean, well-documented subsidiary from the outset.
We design, build and help secure the physical and digital environment your GCC needs to operate reliably at scale.
We define your GCC talent model and then build the team end-to-end leadership, seed pods and scaled hiring under your own brand and standards.
Where you retain an ongoing partner, we can run the center under your standards-owning day-to-day operations while giving leadership clear line of sight.
As the GCC matures, we help you scale and reposition it as a strategic platform-and, when strategy changes, design and execute Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) or exit structures intended to minimise value leakage and control gaps.
A well-designed India GCC can deliver structural cost advantage, deeper talent pools and tighter control when it is treated as a governed operating platform.
A well-structured India GCC is designed to reshape your cost base, consolidating fragmented offshore spend into a single, auditable cost pool and creating capacity that flexes with demand. Operating costs can be materially lower than comparable onshore hubs, while vendor margins are reduced, contracts simplified, and savings redeployed into product, digital and growth investments within a transparent economic model your board can scrutinize and explain.
Value levers
An India GCC, built as a talent platform rather than a back office, can provide depth and diversity of skills that are hard to replicate in a single home market. Multidisciplinary teams across engineering, data, finance and operations sit alongside Centers of Excellence in data and AI, led by 'seed pod' leaders and sustained by university and lateral pipelines tuned to your brand, culture and long-term capability needs.
Value levers
A GCC structured as part of your enterprise, rather than as a loose vendor network, is intended to give boards clearer sightlines on governance, risk and control. Data, IP and critical workflows remain within your legal and contractual perimeter, and group policies on information security, privacy, finance, HR and ethics are implemented locally through defined approvals, logs and documented evidence. Regulatory, tax and labor compliance run to documented calendars with named owners, supported by resilience plans calibrated to group thresholds and designed to withstand regulatory and audit scrutiny.
Value levers
GCC economics are realized when work is transitioned, stabilized and running to agreed service levels. Pre-structured playbooks for entity, workspace, technology and hiring can compress the gap between board approval and first productive teams to months, subject to regulatory timelines. Seed-pod launches, phased transitions and standardized methods limit disruption to business units, while KPIs on cost, service, risk and innovation show clearly whether the center is delivering against its business case.
Value levers
Many firms can describe the India opportunity; fewer are structured to assume defined operational responsibilities across entity, workspace, talent and ongoing delivery. Where agreed, we act as a single accountable counterpart from blueprint through GCC-as-a-Service, BOT or Managed Teams constructs, with governance routines, dashboards and predefined adjustment and exit mechanics built into the engagement so that scaling, recalibration or an orderly unwind can proceed in a controlled way.
Value levers
The scope of an India GCC depends on your strategy, risk appetite and stage of maturity. In practice, most boards converge on a blend of a few clear archetypes, sequenced over time as the center matures.
We structure India entry through three engagement models that calibrate ownership, capital commitment and operational responsibility. Each can stand alone or be sequenced as the GCC matures, with specific terms and mechanics agreed case by case.
Engagement model
GCC-as-a-Service provides India entry on an opex basis using our India entity and operating stack, without forming a subsidiary at the outset. We manage HR, facilities and local compliance under agreed policies, with IP and data protections and contractual options to transition to a standalone GCC or BOT as scale and strategy develop.
Learn moreEngagement model
Build-Operate-Transfer suits organizations that intend a captive GCC but prefer staged execution. Working to an agreed blueprint, we design the entity, office, core technology and leadership, operate the center to defined service and cost parameters, then transfer people, assignable contracts and IP under a structured, documented handover.
Learn moreEngagement model
Managed Teams provide India-based capacity under your brand and direction without creating a local entity or real-estate footprint. You set objectives and KPIs; we manage hiring, HR and infrastructure so capacity can scale, run on a stand-alone basis or support existing GCCs with overflow work and early-stage pilots.
Learn moreBuilding an India GCC is a staged reconfiguration of your operating model across cost, talent, risk and technology. The steps below set out a typical journey from mandate to scaled operations, clarifying how strategy, design and execution progress in sequence. Each program is calibrated to your footprint, regulatory context and governance requirements.
The questions below reflect the themes clients most often raise about our India GCC work-its scope, operating model and governance. For a mandate-specific view, we typically work through your context in a structured discovery session.
A Global Capability Center (GCC) is a captive or captive-like platform, typically in India, that delivers defined functions such as engineering, finance, analytics and operations under your own brand, policies and control framework. It is structured as an extension of your enterprise: you set strategy, risk appetite and standards, and retain decision rights over talent, IP and data, while a partner may help design, set up and operate the center. Traditional outsourcing places more of this control and governance with an external provider operating from its own organization and environment.
Timelines depend on engagement model, scope, location choices and regulatory steps. Where we use existing licensed entities and infrastructure, clients can often reach an initial day-one capability within a few months, subject to approvals and hiring. Standalone GCCs that require a new entity, core registrations and bespoke space typically follow a longer, phased path. For each mandate we agree a realistic critical path, milestones and assumptions up front so expectations on timing, dependencies and responsibilities are clear.
Broadly we work across three constructs: GCC-as-a-Service, Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) and Managed Teams. Together they span the spectrum from using our licensed entities and operating stack to standing up a wholly owned GCC, or adding dedicated India-based capacity alongside your existing footprint. For any mandate we set out in writing how ownership of entities, assets, data, IP and contracts is allocated, and how service, pricing, change and exit will be handled.
We design and operate each GCC within the legal, tax, employment and data-protection frameworks agreed with you and your advisers. In practice this means mapping your policies into local processes and controls, defining data and IP treatment in the contracts, and configuring access, logging and segregation so roles and responsibilities are clear. We also work to provide the reporting and audit trails your internal risk, legal and compliance teams need to oversee the India platform.
The risk profile of a GCC varies by industry and footprint, but typically spans regulatory compliance, culture and leadership, talent attraction and retention, and delivery against cost and timeline expectations. Our approach is to surface these issues early through structured assessment and business casing, then manage them through clear governance, accountable owners, documented policies and SLAs, and deliberate investment in culture and retention. Engagement models are built to allow scaling, pausing or reshaping scope without unnecessary disruption to the underlying platform.
In practice, India GCCs often host a mix of technology and data roles (for example software and platform engineering, DevOps, data engineering, analytics, AI/ML), business and finance operations (for example F&A, controllership support, FP&A, procurement, HR and customer operations) and specialist capabilities such as product management, design, analytics centers of Excellence and R&D or experimentation pods. For each client we work from strategy and risk appetite to define which activities fit the GCC, which remain onshore, and where hybrid or vendor models are more appropriate.
To begin, we usually ask for clarity on intent (target functions, locations, headcount, time horizon and risk appetite), a senior sponsor and a small cross-functional working team, and access to relevant group policies and standards. On that foundation we develop a written blueprint and commercial proposal that sets out indicative scope, timelines, responsibilities, service levels, pricing, data and IP treatment, and options for scale-up or change, which then form the basis for the formal engagement.
Share your current thinking, whether an early hypothesis, RFP draft or stalled initiative, and we will help translate it into practical GCC options, risk considerations and sequencing aligned with your strategy, control framework and governance expectations.
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