When one thinks of Global Capability Centres (GCCs), it is often Fortune 100 companies with an army of employees and large offices that come to mind. But as the GCC model goes mainstream, the captive centres of medium-sized enterprises, today, make up almost 50 per cent of India’s total GCC ecosystem.

As of September 2024, there are over 800 mid-market GCCs in India collectively employing more than 2.2 lakh professionals, according to recent data from consulting firm ANSR, offering end-to-end solutions for GCCs.

“The mid-market GCCs are typically those either too small to be outsourcing their transformation efforts to IT services firms or too large to be not focusing on setting up their own captive digital centres,” Vikram Ahuja, Co-Founder, ANSR, said. They may not be well-known brands with high recall value, but are on an expansion path and looking to access specialised talent locations, he adds.

Many of these centres are micro-GCCs, employing fewer than 50 people. ANSR’s analysis puts the total number of GCCs in India at roughly 1,700.

Most of the mid-market GCC growth has been in the last two years as the GCC model gains acceptance. The driving factors for these smaller GCCs are largely same as that of the larger centres such as India’s skilled workforce and developing infrastructure.

Geographic distribution

However, mid-market GCCs have a wider geographic distribution in terms of their origin countries. While most large GCCs in India are centres of North American companies, mid-market GCCs come from North America (60 per cent), Europe (25 per cent) with Germany, the UK, Ireland, Spain and France as leading contributors. A smaller but notable share (10 per cent) also comes from Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore. Many of these companies are also backed by private equity firms, with ANSR’s report noting that 60 per cent of the new mid-market GCC set-ups post Covid being PE-backed. 

Bengaluru leads peers in housing this form of GCCs with 35 per cent of mid-market GCCs located in the city. Hyderabad (17 per cent), Delhi-NCR (14 per cent), Pune (11 per cent), Mumbai (9 per cent) and Chennai (9 per cent) are other top hubs. “Mid-market GCCs in India are increasingly exploring non-metro cities such as Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Visakhapatnam, Thiruvananthapuram and Coimbatore,” the report from ANSR adds.

Other analysts point out that the next wave of GCCs is already here and they will play a larger role in transfer of technology through R&D. “These ‘nano GCCs’ tap into talent in newer areas such as next-gen hardware, in-memory and edge computing, space technology, genomics technology and synthetic biology,” says Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, Partner at Catalincs, a growth advisory firm. “They may not hire in thousands, but their focus will be on high-end techno-business talent to develop innovative products,” he adds.