Recognising India’s most admired GCCs

The post-pandemic years have seen the rapid expansion of global capability centres (GCCs) in India. The country now hosts 1,900-plus GCCs employing more than 2.1 million professionals, making up nearly 50% of global GCC capacity. The centres, too, have evolved from being cost centres to strategic engines of innovation, advanced decision-making, and global R&D leadership hubs spanning across sectors.

Recognising the importance of the centres, the government announced India’s first comprehensive national policy framework for GCCs in the in Union Budget 2025. An inter-ministerial group is driving the drafting of the policy. At the same time, several states such as Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Kerala, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh have already come up with their own policy framework to boost the sector.

This was followed by this year’s Union Budget introducing tax reforms for the GCC sector that is governed by transfer pricing regulations. It also brought software development services, IT-enabled services, knowledge process outsourcing services, and contract R&D services relating to software development under a single category—Information Technology Services—with a common safe harbour margin of 15.5% applicable to all. Alongside, the threshold for availing safe harbour for IT services was also enhanced from ₹300 crore to ₹2,000 crore.

Currently, Tier I hubs such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Pune continue to anchor innovation, governance, and advanced product engineering. However, Tier II and III cities such as GIFT City, Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Indore, Jaipur, Kochi, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Mysuru, Thiruvananthapuram, Navi Mumbai, and Visakhapatnam are also becoming integral to the diversification of the GCC footprint. Add artificial intelligence to the mix and you have GCCs reimagining their offerings with an emphasis on reskilling, redeployment, and AI-led productivity.

Such a transformation has necessitated a new way to assess GCCs. Traditional measures such as headcount, centre count, and cost savings, among others, no longer fully reflect the sector’s evolution. For instance, these metrics are unable to distinguish between a centre developing a global product and one involved in back-office operations.

Given the immense economic and employment potential that these centres hold, Fortune India—in association with India’s largest GCC enabler ANSR—is launching GCC 50 | India’s Most Admired Capability Centres 2026, which is aimed at recognising wholly owned and operated centres of multinational enterprises that provide specialised services, functions, and capabilities to serve the parent enterprise’s global business needs. The self-assessment-based evaluation will assess global centres across six dimensions: Strategic Alignment, Talent & Capability Depth, Culture & Organisational Identity, Leadership & Governance, Operational Maturity, and Innovation & Transformation.

Participation in the inaugural edition will be invited through a dedicated GCC 50 microsite, which will serve as the gateway for registrations and the assessment process. The self-assessment submissions, administered and evaluated by ANSR, will feed into a rigorous review process before being placed before an independent jury comprising senior industry leaders and domain experts. The jury will deliberate on the assessment findings and the larger context of each organisation’s contribution to the GCC ecosystem before the final GCC 50 list is arrived at.

With the shift from execution to capability being designed, owned, and led from India, this is a significant step in the Make in India story. This makes it the perfect time to identify India’s Most Admired Capability Centres.

To register your GCC, visit www.thegcc50.com