Every year, companies spend millions building GCCs—yet many quietly admit, years later, that their biggest mistake wasn't execution… it was choosing the wrong city. A single miscalculated decision can drain budgets, stall growth, and lock enterprises into talent-starved markets for a decade.
Selecting the right destination for your next GCC is one of the most strategic decisions an enterprise can make. The wrong location strategy can inflate costs, limit access to talent, and slow down transformation. The right location strategy, however, acts as a long-term accelerator—unlocking innovation, supporting scale, and delivering competitive advantage.
In today's rapidly evolving global landscape, choosing where to build your Global Capability Center requires far more than instinct. It demands a systematic, evidence-led location strategy that examines talent, infrastructure, regulation, scalability, and future-readiness.
Below are the seven most critical factors every leadership team must evaluate to ensure their location strategy unlocks sustained success.
The number one success driver for any GCC is talent. A forward-looking location strategy must examine not only the current talent pool but also how it will evolve over the next decade.
Enterprises with a strong location strategy also assess attrition trends, hiring velocity, leadership availability, and the overall maturity of the talent ecosystem.
Long-term capability building—especially in areas such as analytics, digital engineering, compliance, and enterprise operations—depends on whether the chosen location can sustain growth without talent fatigue.
According to a recent industry report, GCC hiring demand in India continues to rise steadily—growing by nearly 10% year-on-year—while advanced digital roles such as AI, cloud engineering, and data engineering still face significant supply gaps. This reinforces why a strong location strategy must evaluate not only current talent availability but also the sustainability of future talent pipelines.
Traditional cost arbitrage is no longer enough. A modern location strategy evaluates holistic economics across a 5‐10 year horizon.
The most successful companies adopt a value-centric location strategy—looking at cost-to-capability ratios instead of purely low-cost markets.
Balanced markets with strong talent but controlled wage inflation outperform “cheap but thin” talent regions. As GCCs increasingly handle strategic transformation work and not just support operations, the economics of capability creation matter more than ever.
According to KPMG's report, cost optimisation is the number one priority for 70% of organisations expanding into new GCC locations, underscoring why a value-driven location strategy matters more than pure cost arbitrage.
No GCC can operate at peak efficiency without strong physical and digital infrastructure. A high-quality location strategy therefore evaluates the maturity of the city's technology, mobility, and business environment.
Cities developing into a global business hub gain a natural advantage—they attract better vendors, stronger talent, and more investment, which reinforces ecosystem quality.
A location with reliable connectivity and digital maturity ensures resilience, productivity, and seamless operations, making this pillar central to any credible location strategy.
Regulatory clarity can make or break a GCC rollout. A mature location strategy requires a deep understanding of local compliance requirements, labor laws, and business policies.
Destinations encouraging business-friendly policy reform create stable environments that allow GCCs to operate with confidence.
In an era where digital work, hybrid talent models, and cross-border data flows are expanding, regulatory transparency becomes one of the cornerstones of a resilient location strategy.
Your GCC must align with the capability strengths of the destination. This is where innovation clusters become critical to location strategy.
These clusters naturally produce a culture of innovation and enable companies to build a Centre of Excellence that can scale.
A strong location strategy matches your long-term capability roadmap with the ecosystem maturity of the city. This ensures that your GCC is not merely functional—but future-ready.
The presence of evolving GCC solutions and global partner ecosystems can further accelerate innovation and operational excellence.
Employee experience is now a strategic driver of productivity. A well-designed location strategy incorporates the human factors that influence hiring, retention, and leadership attraction.
Cities with strong lifestyle appeal draw better talent, attract expats, and encourage long-term careers—key ingredients for stable GCC scaling.
As companies lean more on culture, collaboration, and creativity, quality of life becomes a major influencer within a sustainable location strategy.
Destinations with a vibrant environment also tend to nurture stronger global business services ecosystems, enabling richer talent pools for multi-functional GCCs.
A winning GCC is built for the long run. Therefore, scalability becomes the final—and often decisive—pillar of a robust location strategy.
A future-focused location strategy ensures that the city can grow with your enterprise. This means predictable talent supply, stable wage structures, and a broad vendor ecosystem for HR, facilities, IT, cybersecurity, finance, and operations.
As staffing scales, the quality of talent acquisition channels within the market becomes even more critical—helping companies maintain hiring velocity while ensuring cultural and capability alignment.
Enterprises today are not building GCCs merely for efficiency—they're creating engines of transformation and innovation. This shift requires a more nuanced location strategy that evaluates readiness for digital capabilities, leadership depth, market maturity, and innovation potential.
The rise of Global Capability Centers has redefined how companies think about global footprints. As GCCs move up the value chain—handling AI, cloud engineering, platform modernization, finance transformation, and enterprise risk—they need locations that can support continuous evolution.
This makes the location strategy far more strategic than it was a decade ago. Companies must now balance capability, cost, ecosystem maturity, and innovation potential while minimizing risk and maximizing long-term value.
GCC success depends on one thing above all—a strong, well-researched location strategy. When your market choice aligns with talent depth, infrastructure quality, ecosystem maturity, regulatory stability, and long-term scalability, your GCC becomes a true engine of enterprise growth. These seven factors help you design a location strategy that delivers capability, resilience, and sustained innovation. A powerful location strategy doesn't just predict the future of your GCC—it shapes it.
At Anlage, we deliver comprehensive GCC solutions spanning strategy, setup, talent, real estate, compliance, and operations. Our end-to-end GCC-as-a-Service model ensures your location strategy translates into seamless execution and long-term success.
Connect with us to build a future-ready GCC in the right destination.
A location strategy is a structured approach to selecting the best city or region for your GCC by evaluating factors such as talent availability, cost, infrastructure, regulations, and long-term scalability.
A strong location strategy ensures your GCC has access to the right talent, stable costs, supportive regulations, and an innovation-ready ecosystem—critical for long-term performance and growth.
The seven most important factors are talent depth, cost efficiency, infrastructure strength, regulatory clarity, ecosystem maturity, quality of life, and scalability potential.
Reliable transport, digital connectivity, modern office spaces, and power stability directly improve productivity, employee experience, and operational continuity.
Anlage provides end-to-end GCC solutions—from strategy and location assessment to setup, talent, compliance, and operations—ensuring seamless execution and long-term expansion.
Gaurav Chawla, COO of Anlage Infotech, emphasized the transformative role of AI-powered analytics in HR at the 5th Edition of the GCC Summit 2024. Highlighting predictive analysis and smart tool utilization, he shared how these technologies can cut hiring cycle times by up to 60%, driving greater efficiency. The event took place at GMR Aerocity Hyderabad.
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