Global Delivery Services (GDS) and Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are increasingly critical parts of the overall delivery model for EY Global Delivery Services, says US-based Ajay Anand, EY Global Vice Chair of EY GDS. 

Anand recently assumed role in his new capacity at EY GDS that focuses on growth and innovation through a global team of more than 72,000 professionals. EY GDS is integral to EY’s global strategy, and will lead in innovation and technology development, including cloud and sustainability assurance. GDS acts as a major differentiator for EY, integrating service lines, planning, and delivery capabilities to enhance competitiveness.

Labour arbitrage, plus

“It’s no longer just about providing a workforce for basic tasks, but also about developing platforms, technology builds, AI, and more. From labour arbitrage initially, the focus has shifted towards value addition and innovation,” Anand told businessline in a virtual interaction while on a recent visit to Kerala where EY GDS operates facilities in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi.

The company wants to be where the talent is. There’s a cost aspect to consider, but more importantly, it’s about innovation and tapping into talent pool. Pune is an important location for the company while it is also expanding in Kolkata.

“Of course, we’re well-established in Bengaluru and NCR, but we see immense, untapped potential in Tier 2 cities. The energy and talent in these cities are fantastic, and we have a strong workforce there. Some of the larger cities are reaching a level of saturation, so expanding into these other areas is strategic.”, Anand said.

India, massive talent hub

The Thiruvananthapuram centre started operations in 2002, one of the earlier multinationals to do so. “I was in the US at the time but later took on a larger role and visited the city in 2009 to oversee some development and innovation work. I saw tremendous talent there and we leveraged it. We’ve grown since then, and now in Kerala, we have about 10,000 employees including in Kochi. We’re planning to double that over the next four to five years.”

Being a massive talent hub, India plays a key role. “This is by far our largest GDS location. While we operate in nine countries, India truly stands out, and we’ll need to continue growing in other areas to access the talent we need. Digital India, along with all other innovations, is a huge multiplier. We’re building capabilities here, which we then amplify across the globe,” Anand said.

Ahead, leaps and bounds

The company hires a lot of young talent in India. In fact, about 70 per cent of our people are under 30. The combination of fresh graduates and experienced professionals provides a solid platform to build on here in India and then scale globally.

The company has GDS locations in Eastern Europe - Poland and Hungary - and in Latin America. “But in terms of scale and talent availability, India is leaps and bounds ahead. For context, of the more than 72,000 people in GDS, significant majority are based in India.

Kerala, for instance, is a major part of our strategy. One of the post-pandemic shifts we’ve seen is that companies are much more comfortable with remote work. That’s made it easier to leverage talent from anywhere, including our GCCs,” Anand said. 

AI as enabler and disruptor

EY’s evolution has historically focused on audit and tax, but over the last 15 to 20 years, it has expanded into consulting, especially technology consulting. “We’re hiring engineers along with our traditional hires, and that will continue, possibly even accelerate. We’re also running extensive internal training programmes. Around AI, for instance, we host hackathons and other initiatives so our teams can experiment with new technologies,” Anand explained.

AI, according to him, is both an enabler and a disruptor. “Like any other transformative technology - whether it was computers or the internet - there are concerns that jobs would disappear. AI is transformative, no doubt. Interestingly, I wrote my master’s thesis on AI back in 1994, so I’ve seen how it’s evolved. With generative AI now, it’s really taken off.” 

Will create new jobs

AI will certainly transform jobs, allowing people to focus on higher-level tasks and innovation. It will take over some routine tasks, but will also create new job roles, like prompt engineers (those who design and optimise prompts to guide AI models to generate desired outputs), which weren’t even considered before.

“It’s going to require some adjustments in skill sets, but that’s always the case with new technology. It’s an exciting time. The combination of technical and creative skills will drive innovation forward. And that’s what we’re focused on - leveraging AI to help us do more, better,” Anand pointed out.

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