By Anant Anand
For many years, Global Capability Centers (GCCs) in India were associated with three defining attributes: scale, efficiency, and execution. However, that narrative is now outdated.
Today, India’s GCCs are solving some of the most complex operational and strategic challenges faced by global enterprises. Their role has expanded well beyond delivery into areas that directly influence how companies compete, manage risk, and make decisions.
Across industries, critical work now led from India includes:
- Scaling digital platforms globally
- Embedding resilience into critical systems
- Operationalizing AI responsibly
- Enabling faster, more reliable decision-making in uncertain environments
However, this shift is not incremental, rather, it represents a fundamental shift in mandate, capability depth, and leadership mindset.
From Delivery Centers to Enterprise Ownership
The evolution of GCCs has unfolded in clear phases.
– The early phase was driven by cost optimization.
– The next phase focused on building technical depth and functional capability.
– The current phase is defined by end-to-end ownership of not only processes, but also outcomes.
Amongst all the other changes, what has changed most is the nature of accountability.
Today’s GCC teams are:
- Responsible for measurable business impact, not simply task completion
- Engaged in solving cross-functional problems without fully predefined playbooks
- Expected to operate with enterprise context rather than narrow scope
In many organizations, execution and strategic decision-making increasingly sit closer together since product platforms, data environments, and modernization programs are now architected and governed from India.
This proximity matters as it shortens feedback loops, ensures that decisions are informed by operational realities and strengthens alignment between long-term strategy and day-to-day delivery.
Scaling AI: From Pilots to Production
Technology adoption across enterprises has matured. AI has moved quickly from experimentation to expectation. The real challenge now is scaling AI responsibly.
In large GCCs, teams are deeply involved in:
- Operationalizing ML and GenAI across functions
- Embedding intelligence into workflows, not dashboards
- Automating decisions while preserving human supervision
- Establishing governance for explainability, bias, and monitoring
The value lies not in isolated solutions but in systematic integration. When advanced analytics becomes part of underwriting processes, supply chain planning, care management, or customer engagement, it improves consistency and responsiveness at scale.
GCCs are uniquely positioned to turn AI from isolated use cases into enterprisegrade capabilities, with the right controls built in from day one.
Platform Thinking Over Point Solutions
As organizations grow, complexity accumulates. Independent solutions may address immediate needs, but they often create long-term fragmentation.
Indian GCCs are helping drive a shift toward platform-based thinking.
Another under appreciated contribution of Indian GCCs is the shift toward platform thinking.
This includes:
- Building reusable data products rather than bespoke reports
- Creating shared technology foundations instead of disconnected tools
- Standardizing pipelines, security frameworks, and governance models
- Reducing duplication and minimizing technical debt
Platform orientation creates leverage as it enables faster rollout of new capabilities across regions and business lines, improves consistency in customer experience and regulatory compliance while reducing operational friction.
Importantly, it also allows enterprises to innovate without multiplying complexity.
Data Platforms as Decision Infrastructure
One of the most meaningful ways Indian GCCs are creating impact is through ownership of enterprise data platforms.
Most global companies do not lack data. They struggle with fragmentation across geographies, systems, vendors, and functions.
The real challenge today is not data availability, but: data coherence, trust, and actionability.
GCCled data teams are increasingly responsible for:
- Building cloudscale platforms that unify enterprise data
- Enabling realtime and predictive analytics
- Establishing governance, lineage, and quality as defaults
- Making data usable for business leaders, not just analysts
When data becomes a shared enterprise capability rather than a local asset, decisionmaking accelerates, risk assessments become more precise and strategic planning becomes grounded in consistent information.
By combining engineering discipline with enterprise perspective, GCCs are converting data from a byproduct of operations into decision infrastructure.
Leadership Traits Behind High Impact GCCs
Technology capability alone does not explain this transformation. Leadership capability does.
High-impact GCCs are typically led by individuals who demonstrate:
- Enterprisefirst thinking: Optimizing for global outcomes, not local success
- Comfort with ambiguity: Creating clarity without perfect information
- Outcomedriven accountability: Focusing on what changed or improved
- Talent multiplication: Building leaders and architects at every level
- Trustbased partnerships: Making geography irrelevant through credibility
These characteristics enable GCCs to move beyond support roles into positions of influence.
Looking Ahead
The next phase of India’s GCC evolution will likely be defined by deeper integration into enterprise strategy.
We can expect:
• Greater influence on global strategy, prioritization and investment decisions
• Stronger leadership pipelines that feed global roles
• Continued convergence of business judgment, data capability, and engineering discipline
From a data and analytics perspective, GCCs are no longer “supporting” the business. They are shaping how enterprises evaluate risk, scale responsibly, allocate capital and compete.
The narrative has moved from efficiency to enterprise impact. And increasingly, the solutions to complex global business challenges are being architected and governed from India.
(The above article is authored by By Anant Anand, Software Engineering Director,Evernorth Health Services India. Views are his personal.)
Last Updated on: Thursday, February 19, 2026 12:30 pm by BUSINESS SAGA TEAM | Published by: BUSINESS SAGA TEAM on Thursday, February 19, 2026 12:28 pm | News Categories: Expert Opinions
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