Setting up a Global Capability Center (GCC) is a powerful strategy for companies looking to unlock cost efficiencies, globalize operations, and drive innovation. However, launching a GCC is far from simple. The process involves multiple stakeholders, regulatory intricacies, and a deep understanding of local markets.
Despite the promise of long-term value, many companies stumble in the early stages—losing time, burning capital, and failing to build momentum. So, what separates the GCCs that thrive from those that struggle? The answer often lies in choosing the right partner from Day One.
That’s where a GCC hub comes in. A GCC hub offers the strategic, operational, and local support needed to launch, stabilize, and scale a successful GCC. From reducing setup time to ensuring compliance and hiring the right talent, the GCC hub model is designed to de-risk the journey and accelerate outcomes.
Below, we explore how GCC hubs solve the five biggest challenges companies face when setting up a GCC—and why organizations are increasingly relying on this model for global expansion.
The success of a GCC is highly dependent on where it's located and the availability of relevant talent. Without strong insight into the local landscape, companies risk choosing a city that lacks the skill sets they need or becomes cost-prohibitive over time.
A GCC hub provides robust market intelligence to guide city and site selection. It assesses talent availability, educational institutions, infrastructure readiness, compensation trends, and even attrition rates. More importantly, a GCC hub helps companies build a hiring strategy aligned with their long-term goals.
With deep local connections, campus partnerships, and vetted recruiter networks, the GCC hub can deploy Talent Solutions that deliver high-quality hires quickly. This ensures a solid talent foundation for the GCC’s operations from the very beginning.
Setting up a business in a new country means navigating a maze of laws related to entity formation, labor compliance, tax structures, data protection, and more. These are high-stakes processes, and even small missteps can result in costly delays or penalties.
A GCC hub helps companies remain compliant from day one. It offers a comprehensive suite of GCC solutions including business registration, labor law compliance, payroll setup, contract creation, IP protection, and data security. With a dedicated compliance team on the ground, the GCC hub ensures that companies don’t fall afoul of local rules.
For firms dealing with sensitive domains like finance, healthcare, or customer data, this compliance capability is not optional—it’s mission-critical.
A common perception is that setting up a GCC is expensive and time-consuming. And while that can be true in the absence of a structured plan, the right GCC hub can drastically reduce both time-to-market and initial investment.
The Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model is one of the most effective ways to achieve this. Under BOT, the GCC hub builds the center, runs it according to agreed KPIs, and then transfers it to the client once it's stable. This allows companies to go live faster, with lower upfront risk and optimized capital outlay.
The GCC hub also has pre-negotiated vendor contracts, shared services, and cost-effective infrastructure options—making the entire setup more affordable without compromising quality.
Many GCCs struggle to integrate with their parent organization due to lack of cultural alignment and local leadership. Teams feel disconnected, and what was meant to be a centre of excellence turns into a delivery outpost with high attrition and low engagement.
A GCC hub addresses this by embedding governance frameworks, leadership coaching, and cultural alignment practices into the setup process. From designing reporting hierarchies to facilitating HQ-GCC interactions, the hub ensures that the new center functions as an extension of the headquarters—not an isolated operation.
It also plays a key role in hiring or grooming local leadership, establishing performance metrics, and creating engagement rituals that reflect the parent company’s values and vision.
Even when companies are in the right city, recruiting the right people—especially in high-demand digital domains—is a significant hurdle. Today’s GCCs often need skills in AI, cloud, cybersecurity, data engineering, and UI/UX, which are highly competitive to source.
A GCC hub leverages AI recruitment tools to identify, screen, and hire top-tier candidates more effectively. These tools help assess not just skill sets but also behavioral traits, job-fit scores, and long-term retention likelihood—making recruitment both fast and future-proof.
Beyond hiring, the GCC hub helps companies nurture talent through training, mentorship, and career pathing. This is especially important for firms building an offshore development center, where knowledge retention and domain expertise are key to success.
As globalization accelerates and digital demands intensify, companies no longer look at GCCs as mere cost centers. They are expected to deliver innovation, speed, and scale. The ability to build a strong foundation from the start is what makes the GCC hub model so powerful.
A GCC hub provides more than real estate and hiring support. It delivers full-stack strategic capability—ranging from location strategy and legal setup to governance design and transformation advisory. This makes it ideal for firms looking to build a sustainable global footprint with speed and certainty.
According to research, India’s GCC market is projected to grow from $64.6 billion in FY24 to over $105 billion by 2030, reflecting the increasing reliance on GCCs for value creation rather than just cost savings.
The GCC hub also offers continuity—from Day 0 setup through Day 365 scale-up and Day 730 handover. Whether it’s through a managed services model or a Build-Operate-Transfer transition, the company benefits from having a stable, seasoned partner managing execution while internal teams focus on growth.
Companies that partner with the right GCC hub gain a multi-fold advantage: faster setup, stronger governance, lower costs, and access to top talent. More importantly, they avoid the trial-and-error phase that often derails standalone GCC initiatives.
The GCC hub ensures everything is optimized—talent pipelines, processes, vendor networks, legal structure, and leadership alignment. For organizations aiming to build a centre of excellence, these enablers are essential.
As enterprise operating models become more distributed and AI-powered, Global Capability Centers will play a central role in how value is delivered. A GCC hub ensures that these centers are not just functional—but future-ready.
Notably, India's GCC ecosystem is poised for significant growth. According to a report, Global Capability Centers in India are expected to see an 18‐20% hiring surge in 2025, creating up to 380,000 new jobs across various sectors, including healthcare, retail, and emerging industries like travel and quick-service restaurants.
Launching a GCC is no longer just about cutting costs—it’s about building strategic advantage, accelerating innovation, and future-proofing your global operations. But achieving this requires more than ambition—it demands precision, speed, and local know-how.
A trusted GCC hub doesn’t just simplify setup—it unlocks growth. From location strategy and compliance to hiring top talent and embedding governance, the right GCC hub transforms complexity into competitive edge.
Ready to expand globally with confidence? Discover how a GCC hub can help you go from idea to impact—faster, smarter, and with far less risk.
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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