Only 5% of India’s global capability centres (GCCs) qualify as mega GCCs, yet these 88 centres account for half of the country’s entire GCC workforce, according to Zinnov’s new report titled ‘Unlocking the Advantage of Mega GCCs’. And their influence is set to grow.
More than 230 additional companies are expected to join this elite cohort over the next five years.
To understand this shift, it is necessary to revisit what a GCC represents. GCCs are offshore units set up by multinational companies to run strategic, knowledge-intensive functions, spanning technology, engineering, digital operations and shared services, drawing on India’s vast talent pool and operational strengths.
Mega GCCs sit at the top of this hierarchy. These are centres with more than 5,000 employees and supported by parent organisations generating over $1 billion in global revenue. They stand apart because of their scale, influence and global impact.
This brings us to wonder how India’s GCCs are entering a new era defined not by scale alone, but by strategic depth, global ownership and enterprise-wide innovation mandates.
Talking to AIM, Namita Adavi, partner at Zinnov, mentioned that mega GCCs stand apart because “they operate with strategic intent and deep global ownership.”
These centres are no longer mere extensions of global teams. They replicate the enterprise itself, shaping architecture, influencing global decisions and delivering high-value capabilities across areas such as AI, cloud, cybersecurity and digital engineering.
What Makes a Mega GCC Different?
Mega GCCs are distinguished not just by size, but by the criticality of the work they lead.
Spanning BFSI to automotive sectors, these centres anchor global functions, run large-scale platforms and accelerate modernisation agendas.
Piyush Kedia, co-founder and CEO of InCommon, told AIM that “mega GCCs that work well have one thing in common: they focus on ownership, not output—and that shift changes everything.”
Over a three to five-year horizon, he noted, these centres often become the place where enterprises test new bets, incubate cross-functional pods, and groom future global heads of engineering, product and operations.
Adavi highlighted similar trends, pointing out that JPMorgan Chase’s India GCC runs core platforms for payments, risk, and digital operations. Amazon’s India teams drive rapid experimentation for customer experience and personalisation systems deployed worldwide.
Meanwhile, Wells Fargo’s engineering teams shape global risk, fraud and servicing platforms. In the automotive industry, Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India leads key components of the software-defined vehicle roadmap.
Close to 90% of mega GCCs sit in the portfolio or transformation stages, where India teams influence architectural decisions and modernisation programs.
“Leadership models set them apart as well. Target’s India leadership, for example, manages both centre operations and global product or engineering portfolios, turning the GCC into a launchpad for enterprise-wide innovation and leadership,” Adavi added.
Why a Few GCCs Capture Nearly Half of India’s GCC Workforce
Mega GCCs scale because they operate as fully integrated replicas of the global enterprise.
Adavi noted that semiconductor leaders such as Intel, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments run design, verification, silicon engineering and AI-driven tooling under one roof in India. This vertical integration makes India the technical heartbeat of their global R&D.
Furthermore, Cisco leads network automation, cloud operations and advanced security engineering from its Indian centres, while Amazon and Target unify product, engineering, data and operations to strengthen end-to-end execution.
At the same time, HSBC and Wells Fargo maintain tight global alignment while driving India-led innovation and local talent strategies.
Long-term presence also matters. Mature engineering-led GCCs have built deep competency in digital platforms, enterprise systems and complex R&D. With scale, strong governance, and high-value mandates, these centres naturally evolve into engines of global transformation.
Neeti Sharma, CEO of TeamLease Digital, revealed in a conversation, “Most of them have been in India for over a decade, having started with support and technology functions and now gradually becoming innovation and research hubs for their HQs.”
Today, over 1,800 GCCs hire more than 10.4 million employees for the most niche roles. They pay over 25-30% higher than other industries. This makes their roles more attractive to employees. Hence, attrition is also as low as 9-10%.
It takes some time to build brand awareness for smaller or newer GCCs just entering India, according to Sharma. It takes some time to build brand awareness, thereby making it difficult in the initial phase to attract talent.
Sharma explained that for many of them, partnering with service providers under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model enables them to initiate hiring and then scale as they increase in volume and size. Over 200 centres have also expanded into tier-2 cities, benefiting from 20-30% lower costs and strong digital talent pools.
However, this raises a larger question: Does this level of concentration risk creating innovation silos?
Adavi explained that the concentration is fuelling ecosystem-wide collaboration, not fragmentation. “This talent circulates across the ecosystem,” she said.
High-skilled professionals trained at Intel, Qualcomm, Bosch, Cisco, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC and Wells Fargo often move into emerging GCCs, high-growth startups, global technology service providers, etc.
However, Alouk Kumar, founder and CEO of Inductus Group, mentioned that this concentration of 50% of high-end talent within 5% of mega GCCs poses a systemic concentration risk that might threaten the foundational value proposition of the entire GCC phenomenon in India.
“To secure the future of the $450 billion GCC vision, we must move beyond simply competing for a finite pool and proactively engineer a diversified and self-sustaining talent supply chain,” Kumar added.
Will Mega GCCs of the Future Need 10,000 People—or 1,000 Specialists?
As AI, automation and digital transformation reshape work, the scale equation is evolving.
Yet, the idea that future GCCs will shrink is misplaced.
“The future will not be 1,000 specialists replacing 10,000 employees. There will be 10,000 professionals who operate with specialist-level depth and global impact,” Adavi said.
Industry trends reflect this shift as companies deepen their capabilities in India.
Continental is expanding in model-based engineering, digital twins, simulation, and performance computing, while Texas Instruments is driving AI-assisted design and next-generation verification flows.
Cisco’s India teams are scaling network intelligence, cloud management platforms and advanced security engineering.
BFSI leaders like JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and HSBC are rebuilding talent around AI-led risk systems, fraud analytics, data engineering and platform modernisation.
These examples make one point clear. Mega GCCs are not becoming smaller; they are becoming deeper, more technical, and more globally consequential.
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