India home to over 480 mid-market GCCs, employing over 2 lakh employees

Time of India

22-04-2025

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Hyderabad: India's mid-market
global capability centres
(GCC) are experiencing a surge, outshining their peers by unlocking new opportunities. This growth is creating a flywheel effect, allowing them to leverage a diverse talent pool. India has over 480 mid-market GCCs, with 2,10,000 professionals employed, as shown in a Nasscom-Zinnov report.
Mid-market GCCs are capability centres set up by mid-sized firms with annual revenue ranging from $100 million to $1 billion. They represent 27% of all GCCs and 22% of total GCC units in the country. In the past five years alone, more than 110 new facilities were established, representing approximately 35% of all new GCC units in India within this period.
About 60% of end-to-end platform ownership in enterprise portfolios is driven from India by mid-market GCCs. Significant work is being done across AI/ML, cybersecurity, cloud, and data science. India hosts 47% of global product management talent and 25% of the deeptech workforce for mid-market GCCs.
Pari Natarajan, CEO and co-founder of global management company Zinnov, said that in mid-market companies, private equity ownership plays a significant role. These private equity firms implement structured value creation strategies, with India-based GCCs being a crucial component. "When such centres don't exist, establishing them becomes a strategic board-level directive. For mid-market firms without private equity backing, the push towards India centres comes from board members who serve as operational leaders," he said.
India ideal destination for global GCCs
North American firms, the report said, show a higher propensity to globalise, and India becomes an ideal destination given the learning agility and depth in the talent. The key destinations for mid-market GCCs continue to be Bengaluru, Hyderabad, NCR, and Chennai, which collectively host 74% of new GCC establishments. Notably, Hyderabad has evolved into a significant talent hub for mid-market GCCs during the past five years, accounting for 25% of the workforce expansion.
Experts believe size doesn't matter if value holds greater significance than scale. "The key is that we start to see these companies maturing in value much faster, and mid-market GCCs tend to have a higher density of product managers and architects. They are setting up with the mindset of needing to build products, accelerate engineering footprint, and foster innovation," he said.
About 60% of end-to-end product and platform ownership in enterprise portfolios is driven by mid-market GCCs in the country. When it comes to the depth of the capabilities, 47% of global product management talent in mid-market GCCs is anchored in India.
Mid-market GCCs focus on delivering high-value, specialised services while maintaining a leaner operational model compared to larger GCCs. Mid-market GCCs promote talent to site leadership 20% faster, enabled by leaner structures, early ownership, and direct visibility to global leaders. Nasscom president Rajesh Nambiar said, "The next wave of global capability will not come from size, but from speed, specialisation, and strategic influence. With world-class talent and a vibrant digital ecosystem, mid-market GCCs are no longer just delivery engines but are emerging as cultural innovation labs and centres of excellence, driving R&D, product innovation, and enterprise digitisation for global impact."
GCC's growing faster
While mid-market GCCs often start as outposts like their larger peers, they tend to progress 1.2 times faster along the maturity curve aided by focused charters and closer reporting alignment to the GCC, the report said.
Mid-market GCCs house high-calibre engineering talent and serve as global hubs for key workloads, including AI, product development, prompt engineering, and IoT. The Nasscom-Zinnov report showed that large mid-market headquarter clusters in the USA, UK, Germany, and Japan remain underpenetrated in India, representing a strategic opportunity for targeted regional outreach and setup support. Even as mid-market firms benefit from flexible build-operate-transfer (BOT) and shared services models, reducing upfront cost and complexity, India remains an preferred GCC-as-a-service destination.
Hyderabad: India's mid-market global capability centres (GCC) are experiencing a surge, outshining their peers by unlocking new opportunities. This growth is creating a flywheel effect, allowing them to leverage a diverse talent pool. India has over 480 mid-market GCCs, with 2,10,000 professionals employed, as shown in a Nasscom-Zinnov report.
Mid-market GCCs are capability centres set up by mid-sized firms with annual revenue ranging from $100 million to $1 billion. They represent 27% of all GCCs and 22% of total GCC units in the country. In the past five years alone, more than 110 new facilities were established, representing approximately 35% of all new GCC units in India within this period.
About 60% of end-to-end platform ownership in enterprise portfolios is driven from India by mid-market GCCs. Significant work is being done across AI/ML, cybersecurity, cloud, and data science. India hosts 47% of global product management talent and 25% of the deeptech workforce for mid-market GCCs.
Pari Natarajan, CEO and co-founder of global management company Zinnov, said that in mid-market companies, private equity ownership plays a significant role. These private equity firms implement structured value creation strategies, with India-based GCCs being a crucial component. "When such centres don't exist, establishing them becomes a strategic board-level directive. For mid-market firms without private equity backing, the push towards India centres comes from board members who serve as operational leaders," he said.
India ideal destination for global GCCs
North American firms, the report said, show a higher propensity to globalise, and India becomes an ideal destination given the learning agility and depth in the talent. The key destinations for mid-market GCCs continue to be Bengaluru, Hyderabad, NCR, and Chennai, which collectively host 74% of new GCC establishments. Notably, Hyderabad has evolved into a significant talent hub for mid-market GCCs during the past five years, accounting for 25% of the workforce expansion.
Experts believe size doesn't matter if value holds greater significance than scale. "The key is that we start to see these companies maturing in value much faster, and mid-market GCCs tend to have a higher density of product managers and architects. They are setting up with the mindset of needing to build products, accelerate engineering footprint, and foster innovation," he said.
About 60% of end-to-end product and platform ownership in enterprise portfolios is driven by mid-market GCCs in the country. When it comes to the depth of the capabilities, 47% of global product management talent in mid-market GCCs is anchored in India.
Mid-market GCCs focus on delivering high-value, specialised services while maintaining a leaner operational model compared to larger GCCs. Mid-market GCCs promote talent to site leadership 20% faster, enabled by leaner structures, early ownership, and direct visibility to global leaders. Nasscom president Rajesh Nambiar said, "The next wave of global capability will not come from size, but from speed, specialisation, and strategic influence. With world-class talent and a vibrant digital ecosystem, mid-market GCCs are no longer just delivery engines but are emerging as cultural innovation labs and centres of excellence, driving R&D, product innovation, and enterprise digitisation for global impact."
GCC's growing faster
While mid-market GCCs often start as outposts like their larger peers, they tend to progress 1.2 times faster along the maturity curve aided by focused charters and closer reporting alignment to the GCC, the report said.
Mid-market GCCs house high-calibre engineering talent and serve as global hubs for key workloads, including AI, product development, prompt engineering, and IoT. The Nasscom-Zinnov report showed that large mid-market headquarter clusters in the USA, UK, Germany, and Japan remain underpenetrated in India, representing a strategic opportunity for targeted regional outreach and setup support. Even as mid-market firms benefit from flexible build-operate-transfer (BOT) and shared services models, reducing upfront cost and complexity, India remains an preferred GCC-as-a-service destination.