Faced with tighter IT budgets and rising macroeconomic pressures, global enterprises are increasingly turning to their Global Capability Centres (GCCs)—especially in India—not just to contain costs but to drive innovation and strategic alignment. Experts said that what began as a tactical shift is now emerging as a transformative sourcing strategy, with organisations internalising high-impact tech functions into their GCCs while redefining the role of IT services firms.
“Pre-Covid, many companies began pursuing large-scale tech transformations and IT services companies thrived. During Covid, instead of physically sending teams to client locations, these transformations were carried out remotely. Companies realised that work didn’t need to be done by someone beside them and instead, more cost-effectively from the home location. This accelerated the entire GCC movement with factors like government incentives, also playing a role. The loss of IT services became a gain for GCCs. But now, even IT services firms are setting up GCCs, recognising cost is a major driver and the nature of work itself is evolving in response to advancements in virtual collaboration,” explained Roop Kaistha, Regional Managing Director - APAC, AMS.
Due to mounting macroeconomic pressures and constrained IT budgets, many organisations are insourcing technology work into their GCCs as a deliberate cost-containment and value-optimisation strategy. This is especially true in cost-effective, talent-rich markets like India.
Since the onset of Covid-19, Everest Group tracked over 600 new GCC set-ups in India, with more than two-thirds of them focused on IT, or having IT as a significant part of their scope.
Rohitashwa Aggarwal, Partner, Everest Group, shared this shift goes beyond cost savings. Enterprises are increasingly viewing GCCs as strategic hubs to enable digital transformation, product innovation and data-led decision-making. These centres now deliver full-stack capabilities—from engineering and cybersecurity to advanced analytics and AI/ML.
“Many clients express concerns around over-reliance on third-party vendors, particularly when speed, agility and innovation are paramount. For them, insourcing is as much about unlocking transformation and ownership as it is about managing cost. Insourcing through GCCs is often more cost-efficient over time, especially for organisations with the scale and strategic commitment to build long-term capabilities. It delivers stronger cost predictability, better governance and deeper integration with enterprise priorities while creating opportunities to reinvest savings into enhancing the technology stack and upskilling talent,” Aggarwal said.
Hybrid model
On the other hand, a hybrid model, where enterprises keep core and strategic functions in-house, while selectively outsourcing to address gaps or manage scale, is on the rise.
He continued that while the share of GCCs in total offshore/nearshore delivery has increased from 20 per cent to nearly 30 per cent over the past 15 years, the total delivery pie has also tripled in size. Even as companies insource more, the outsourcing market continues to experience robust growth.
Vikram Ahuja, Co-Founder of ANSR, and CEO 1Wrk, argued that global enterprises are not cutting tech budgets, but rethinking how to best deploy them.
“We call this best-sourcing—a thoughtful mix of insourcing and partnering. GCCs focus on core innovation and IP ownership, while foundational and scale work continues through IT service providers. It is a model designed for resilience and long-term value, not short-term cost savings,” he said.
As GCCs mature, they are evolving from just delivery hubs to global strategy and innovation centres, setting technology direction, defining roadmaps and often orchestrating how service partners execute. IT services companies are also evolving, shifting from pure delivery to becoming more consultative, domain-driven and outcome-focused to meet the changing needs of mature GCCs, Ahuja added.