Microsoft, Amazon, Google, GS, JP Morgan Chase, Deloitte, Walmart, Bosch, Adobe, Target, Salesforce, AstraZeneca.

What’s common to these dozen organisations? Other than the fact that they are, well, large, well-respected and innovative?

They all operate their own development and innovation centres in India. Often sprawling campuses and offices across multiple cities, filled with Indian engineers, project managers, product experts, designers, HR, finance and, well, virtually every function that’s required to run a business.

They’re called GCCs. Global Capability Centres.

There are over 1,000 global organisations that collectively operate over 1,700 GCCs across India. They employ over 2 million professionals. They generate over $40 billion in annual value, set to surpass $100 billion in another five years.

So, what’s the problem?

Well, most GCCs are technically doing work that could have been outsourced to Indian outsourcers like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, etc. In fact, GCCs are so successful a strategy that they’re growing much faster than Indian outsourcers.

And as if taking away potential revenue from Indian outsourcers weren’t enough, GCCs are now also taking away talent. That’s right. They’re hiring experienced and talented professionals using higher salaries, better brands and the promise of better work.

It appears to be a zero-sum game. A pie that isn’t growing.

Both our guests for today’s episode are experts on GCCs, and they had a lot to say about the same. Our first guest is Narayana Ramamurthy, whom you’ll hear us address as ‘Naru’ throughout the discussion. Naru is the founder and CEO of Workfutr, a company which enables US and European organisations to harness India's offshore capability in technology, operations, and transformation. And our second guest is Karthik Padmanabhan, who is the managing partner for GCCs at Zinnow, a global management and consulting firm founded in 2002 that partners and advises global enterprises, outsourcers, PE firms around AI, automation, outsourcing and well, GCCs.

Welcome to episode 49 of Two by Two.

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Additional reading:

ANSR’s Ahuja duo on why “everybody, from Victoria’s Secret to Google, will do pretty much the same thing in India” - https://the-ken.com/story/ansrs-ahuja-duo-on-why-everybody-from-victorias-secret-to-google-will-do-pretty-much-the-same-thing-in-india/

GCCs could pose a potential threat to Indian IT - https://analyticsindiamag.com/gcc/gccs-could-pose-a-potential-threat-to-indian-it/

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This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, please share it with your friends and family who would be interested in listening to the episode. And if you have more thoughts on the discussion, we’d love to hear your arguments as well. You can write to us at [email protected].