Reliance Industries, Adani Group, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL) and Bank of Baroda are among Indian entities that have set up such centres locally in the past two to four years.
Indian firms are estimated to have set up around 50 GCCs in the last couple of years in sectors like telecom, financial services and automotive, said Arindam Sen, GCC leader and partner for media, entertainment and telecommunications practice at EY India.
“Companies are growing in terms of size and scale, and the businesses they operate in are pushing them to think along these lines; otherwise, they start duplicating resources,” he said.
“To get things more streamlined and adopt a leaner model across the sectors and geographies in which they operate, they have taken a page from multinationals. That’s the primary driver,” said Sen.
Legacy companies are also recognising the need for a robust, centralised tech strategy and talent in a world where rapid evaluation of technology is disrupting and transforming businesses, say experts. These companies may not necessarily label these facilities are GCCs — such units are often called technology centres, innovation/ R&D labs or centres of excellence — the purpose they serve is similar to that of GCCs.
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Some of these companies are setting up centralised facilities in small cities and also in Gujarat’s GIFT City, because of low cost, availability of talent and lower attrition rates, said industry experts.On September 24, Adani Enterprises, one of India’s largest conglomerates, incorporated a wholly owned subsidiary, Adani GCC Pvt Ltd, in Ahmedabad.
This will provide business transformation services and back-office services including finance & accounts, human resources, IT and ITeS on a shared basis to group companies, Adani Enterprises said in a regulatory filing.
Drugmaker Dr Reddy’s in June inaugurated a 70,000 sq ft biologics facility at Genome Valley in Hyderabad for its group company, Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services.
In August, Reliance Industries said it is also going on big on innovation, expanding its R&D within India. Public sector lender Bank of Baroda has a wholly owned subsidiary, Baroda Sun Technologies, which works on the bank’s digital transformation, as well as acts as an innovation catalyst and incubation centre for new-age technologies.
These facilities may not have the scale of an IT firm, said Sen. “But these large companies could grow their headcount significantly and operate in a very efficient manner. Investments have already started coming in.”
GCC Capital
“Traditionally, it has been global companies setting up GCCs in India, but now we’re seeing Indian enterprises embracing this powerful model,” said Lalit Ahuja, founder and chief executive of ANSR, which helps companies establish GCCs in India. “This shift highlights the transformative potential of the GCC framework—not just for optimising operations but for delivering value and strategic growth. One of the most significant benefits of Indian enterprises setting up GCCs is the ability to tap into the global talent pool traditionally hired by multinationals.”
ANSR has engaged with around 10 Indian firms for setting up their GCCs here, he said.
Hubs like Coimbatore and Ahmedabad are particularly becoming attractive for companies looking to set up GCCs, because of incentives from state governments, as well as presence of established educational institutions and availability of high-skilled talent, along with lower cost compared with the metros, said experts.
As the global GCC capital, India currently houses more than 1,700 GCCs, around 17% of such centres globally. These facilities employ around 1.9 million people.
The number of GCCs is expected to increase to 2,100-2,200 and headcount to 2.5-2.8 million by 2030, as per a Nasscom-Zinnov India GCC landscape report released in September. By then, their share in Indian IT industry revenue is estimated to grow to $99-105 billion from $64.6 billion last year.
But local companies may not benefit much from the cost arbitrage that drives offshore entities to set up GCCs in India, said an expert from one of the Big 4 consultancy firms. “So, productivity per unit of dollar spent needs to reduce. For this, the homegrown companies need to deploy technology at scale for the cost-benefit analysis to make sense.”
