Global Capability Centres (GCC) in India have come a long way from being cost centres; they have evolved into hubs that deliver enterprise value and drive strategic decision making.

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From a GCC perspective, India currently stands out as a strategic location to operate in. This is validated by the fact that about 50% of GCCs, the world over, are located within the country. Having journeyed from maintaining systems to managing business operations and leading product engineering and design, GCCs in India are a beacon of transformation for their respective organisations.

To understand the role of these centres as support systems that drive transformation and innovation, CNBC-TV18 and Thomson Reuters hosted a series of panel discussions, under the banner ‘The Future of Global Capability Centres’. Moderated by Nisha Poddar, Anchor & Editor at CNBC-TV18, the deliberations witnessed leading domain experts offering their views on the growing potential of GCCs in India. The subject matter experts discussed how these centres could enable companies to build the right capabilities and accelerate their change management journeys.

The first panel discussion, themed ‘GCCs: Reshaping NOW, Reimagining NEXT’, featured Lalit Ahuja, Founder & CEO, ANSR; Naveen Mohan, Head - Global Business Services India and CFO of Siemens Technology and Services Private Limited; Pradeep Lankapalli, MD, Shared Service, Global Content, Thomson Reuters and Sumit Mitra, CEO, Global Business Service, Tesco. They explored why India is pegged as the preferred hub for capability centres and how GCCs would evolve in the future to offer improved services to global businesses.

India, being a large commercial market, has everything from enterprise leadership, talent and business maturity to service providers, start-ups, technology product companies and venture capitalists, amongst others. This unique and diverse business ecosystem enables GCCs to become a melting pot with all the constituents that encourage them to flourish and rise to the next level.

The panelists observed that India’s GCC business models, which are industry, size and destination agnostic have proven to be a success. These GCCs have claimed a seat at the table of their respective organisations’ strategy councils by delivering value creation and connecting directly to the purpose of the organisation. With capabilities to leverage data and undertake activities that drive customer intimacy, commercial acumen and much more, they are effectively focusing on skills of the future.

Projections show that India has become a destination of choice with over 100 MNCs looking at setting up centres within the country. What will differentiate India from other global locations is that it is in the final iteration of the GCC revolution, which began almost two decades ago.

After deep diving into the potential of GCCs in India, the second episode of the series, themed ‘Global Capability Centres: Driving Value Leveraging Knowledge-based Processes’ investigated the holistic approach of GCCs to technology and how this can be used to standardise processes, revolutionise financial reporting and tax and build next-generation finance processes.

The panel, comprising of leading practitioners from the space - Arvind Subramanian, Chief Accounting Officer, Philips; Gaurav Gupta, Partner, Deloitte, India; Rajesh Ojha, MD & Lead - GIC-GCC, Accenture and Vishal Parekh, Regional Head - India, SE Asia, Middle East & Africa, Thomson Reuters – discussed a range of thought-provoking subjects around the central theme.

They observed that as markets and the regulatory environment are becoming more complex, from a risk and compliance perspective, there is a shift in the focus of organisations to areas like finance and taxation management, with the aim of reducing the risks that prevail in a very distributed set up.

Rather than a question of cost or value, till fairly recently, the greater consideration was whether automating complex functions was possible. Vishal Parekh noted, “Until even seven years ago, complex functions like tax were considered hard to automate and nearly impossible to centralise. It required complex, multi-step processes and a considerable amount of human talent. But now, people are leveraging our solutions to do the same job with around 80% less resources and 80% more efficiency.” Consequently, there is a growing trend of companies centralising these functions.

They also discussed the next level of GCC aspirations in terms of the value curve, envisioning the creation of data lakes that can be leveraged to step up change. As companies evolve, they will find the need for new, unified and intelligent supply chains, made robust with technology. GCCs could also play a role in statutory reporting, due to their ability to standardise in a central environment, drive automation, leverage capability and sustain knowledge.

As GCCs deliver higher quality outcomes, at faster turn-around-times and lower costs, the dependence on third party providers in the market will decrease, which in turn will drive efficiency further. Further, with greater scalability, consistency and efficiency, the implementation of best practices becomes a given.

In the past, roadblocks for GCCs typically revolved around people and technology. The panel discussed strategies for retention of talent and adopting the right technology, which are the cornerstone of success of a GCC. They concluded that future proofing talent requires knowledge-transfers and training in soft-skills and cultural fit, while future proofing of technology involves keeping track of emerging trends that facilitate scale, optimization and sharing.

The last session in the series was themed ‘Global Capability Centres: Roadmap to the Future’. It put a spotlight on how Indian GCCs are moving up the ladder to lead global R&D efforts. The knowledgeable panel, featuring David Fox, Vice President & MD, Corporate Business, AEM, Thomson Reuters; Milton Fernando, Head Finance Business Service, Renault Nissan and Rajib Basu, Head - Record To Report & Bill to cash, Bosch GBS India, envisioned how GCCs in India could evolve to chart their journey with a complete growth mind-set.

David Fox set the tone for the discussion, saying, “There has been a significant change in the way corporations approach their GCC strategies. From the mind-set of low-cost labour models being pivotal, they are now looking at end-to-end process ownership, with senior business leadership appointments at these centres. This has enabled decision making capabilities to take place globally out of GCCs.” He also added, “With technology playing a crucial role, knowledge bases processes that require expertise – like tax, trade and compliance – are being undertaken at GCCs and play a key role in advancing the value that these centres are providing to multinational organisations.”

They shared that in general, GCCs have been essential value drivers for organisations across the spectrum. However, forward looking GCCs have turned into global powerhouses for processes, centralisation of which was thought of as unimaginable in the past. Such GCCs were able to envision and articulate the business case internally and successfully chart the journey of their evolution, with a growth mind-set.

All in all, the three-part series ‘The Future of Global Capability Centres’ clearly emphasised that the best is yet to come for GCCs in India. Despite ~25% of its workforce operating from GCCs in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, Thomson Reuters believes that the potential of GCCs is India still demonstrates immense untapped opportunities. Powered by skilled talent, content-driven technologies and an innovative workplace culture, GCCs in India can deliver a stronger value proposition to organisations around the world.

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First Published:Aug 11, 2022 12:13 PM IST