Services
Consulting
TCS Consulting Services to Achieve Success in the Digital Era
Highlights
- From cost to value creation: Global capability centres (GCCs) have evolved from being cost-saving hubs to strategic assets, driving talent development, innovation, enterprise resilience, and customer-centric transformation with an artificial intelligence (AI)-first mindset.
- Maturity path and success factors: GCCs progress from efficiency-focussed units to strategic partners when organisations embed them in enterprise governance, invest in talent, leverage ecosystems, and align with long-term business goals.
- Future-ready GCC models: With engagement approaches like build-operate-transfer (BOT), hybrid, and managed setups, GCCs are evolving into multi-role centres—innovation labs, product hubs, and transformation engines—that accelerate enterprise growth when guided by strategic technology partners with the required knowhow.
On this page
On this pageinpage
Growing role of GCCs
From efficiency engines to strategic partners in transformation
In their earliest form, global capability centres (GCCs) focused primarily on moving transactional activities to low-cost destinations. This approach ensured significant savings, but it limited their scope—they were perceived as just back-office utilities. However, as digital disruption, customer experience priorities, and geopolitical uncertainty become central concerns, enterprises have begun to expect far more from their GCCs. The model has shifted from efficiency to effectiveness, with GCCs serving as extensions of strategy and actively influencing decisions and outcomes as against being isolated delivery hubs. This progression reflects a fundamental rethinking of their place in the enterprise value chain.
Modern GCCs have redefined themselves as co-creators of growth and resilience. They provide access to specialised global talent, enable rapid digital experimentation, and support customer-centric reinvention.. By embedding themselves within leadership agendas, they become indispensable transformation partners, critical in shaping future-ready organisations. Enterprises that recognise and empower this role unlock a competitive advantage, as GCCs increasingly represent the link between corporate vision and operational agility.
4 mega-shifts driving GCC evolution unlocking its value:
- Digital disruption
- Global talent competition
- Market and geopolitical volatility
- Customer-centric reinvention
Value beyond cost
Next-generation GCCs deliver value in four critical dimensions.
The talent dimension is at the forefront. Mature GCCs are becoming attractive career destinations, giving organisations access to global digital skills, and helping build diverse leadership pipelines. Their ability to draw talent depends on the enterprise brand, the GCC’s mission, and the opportunities they offer to contribute to impactful work. Through structured learning, mobility pathways, and a culture of continuous innovation, GCCs develop future-ready capabilities and deliver value. The second dimension is innovation. GCCs increasingly serve as incubators of intellectual property, collaborating with startups, academia, and technology partners. Many enterprise platforms and automation breakthroughs originate from GCC labs that specialise in rapid prototyping, experimentation, and scale. These dimensions move GCCs from being transactional delivery centers to transformational hubs.
The third dimension is resilience. GCCs help organisations hedge a wide range of risks by building alternative and controllable delivery capabilities. Just to highlight a few risks: Geographic risks are hedged through multi-location operating models that allow work to shift when one region is disrupted. Operational risks are reduced by standardised processes and cross-trained teams that can assume ownership at short notice. Regulatory risks are mitigated by supporting local compliance expertise and embedding global policies within GCC-run processes. Vendor-related risks are hedged by insourcing critical skills and reducing reliance on a single external partner. Together, these measures create a flexible, distributed network that keeps essential operations running even during unexpected disruptions. The fourth is strategic partnership. Mature GCCs influence enterprise key performance indicators (KPIs), co-own outcomes, and often host centres of excellence (CoEs) for cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, or sustainability. By integrating themselves into leadership agendas, they secure a role that extends beyond support into enterprise direction-setting. Together, these four dimensions demonstrate how GCCs deliver multidimensional value—building talent ecosystems, driving innovation, ensuring resilience, and shaping enterprise transformation journeys.
GCC maturity path
Enterprises progress through four stages of GCC maturity.
At stage 1, GCCs focus on centralised processes and operational savings as efficiency drivers. At stage 2, GCCs act as capability builders; specialised functions such as analytics or product engineering begin to take shape. While these two stages deliver visible benefits, many organisations plateau here. Without strong governance or enterprise alignment, they risk limiting GCCs to narrow roles. This creates a gap between potential and realised value, leaving opportunities for innovation and strategy unfulfilled. Closing this gap requires deliberate design choices and robust talent and leadership frameworks.
At stage 3, GCCs mature into value creators, marking the expansion of GCCs into innovation hubs that co-own outcomes and drive automation across core business functions.
Stage 4 is where the GCC steps into the role of a strategic partner that is fully aligned with the enterprise’s long-term vision. Getting to this level requires strong executive sponsorship, collaborative ways of working, and close alignment with the organisation’s strategic priorities. At this stage, GCCs play an active role in governance, shaping platform and capability road maps, defining KPIs, and influencing and guiding global strategies—especially those tied to growth, resilience, and long-term value creation.
Future-ready GCCs
Five design principles help GCCs mature beyond cost and become future-ready.
These five principles -- not cost alone -- are the building blocks of a future-ready GCC: purpose, global integration, talent, strategic location, and a one enterprise culture.
The first principle is anchoring in purpose. Future-ready GCCs establish a vision that extends beyond savings, positioning themselves as drivers of enterprise transformation and long-term value creation. The second principle is global integration, ensuring governance structures, metrics, and decision rights align seamlessly with the overall enterprise strategy. Without alignment, GCCs risk becoming siloed entities disconnected from organisational objectives. The third principle focuses on talent and leadership, embedding robust skilling platforms, mentorship programs, and clear career progression paths to keep employees engaged, agile and future-ready. Talent development is often the strongest differentiator of long-term GCC success.
The fourth principle is strategic location. Beyond delivery cost efficiencies, enterprises must consider access to innovation ecosystems, academic partnerships, and supportive local government policies when selecting new GCC destinations. This ensures access to collaborative talent networks and accelerates digital growth.
The fifth principle is fostering a one-enterprise culture. Beyond structural integration, GCCs must foster a shared identity and mindset. By embedding common values, promoting diversity and inclusivity across geographies, and creating a sense of belonging, GCCs build resilience and collective ownership, positioning themselves as integral parts of the organisation rather than peripheral units. Together, these five principles enable GCCs to serve as engines of sustained advantage, capable of driving enterprise-wide digital transformation, innovation, and growth at scale.
GCC models
Enterprises can choose GCC models based on their desired agility, risk, and control.
Modern GCCs increasingly specialise as CoEs for emerging technologies like AI, machine learning, and cybersecurity, while others focus on sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives. Many are becoming innovation labs, and collaborating with startups, universities and think tanks to experiment with new technologies. This shift enables GCCs to blend research, experimentation, and execution, positioning them as proactive leaders in enterprise reinvention. By adopting multi-dimensional roles, GCCs drive agility and competitive advantage across industries, moving beyond a single, static identity.
Selecting the right GCC setup model is crucial for aligning with enterprise priorities. Enterprise-managed GCCs give organisations full control, with partners providing advisory support on setup, compliance, and talent acceleration. BOT and quasi-BOT models enable rapid establishment with a structured transition path to enterprise ownership. Hybrid models distribute responsibilities across the enterprise and partners—allowing the organisation to retain ownership of critical functions with partners delivering selected operational or even strategic capabilities that benefit from scale or specialised expertise. Fully managed models provide an asset-light approach, letting partners own and operate centres so organisations can focus on outcomes. Success with partner-enabled models depends on the partner’s domain expertise, governance strength, and ability to build talent at speed. The most mature GCCs take on product ownership and enterprise-wide transformation, combining talent hubs, innovation labs, and delivery centres to power digitisation, automation, and cloud migration at scale.