India’s GCC story: Innovating with AI-powered automation
Over the last decade, Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in India have seen remarkable success and emerged from being offshore centres to hubs of technological innovation. More recently, with higher advancements in the technology landscape and emergence of intelligent automation technologies and artificial intelligence (AI), GCCs have gained the unique advantage to drive operational efficiencies. This has resulted in GCCs assuming a more strategic role while supporting the broader transformation strategies of global enterprises.
The technological evolution of GCCs in India
With the advancements in technology, India’s GCCs have undergone considerable changes. Their journey has been marked by several milestones that have positioned India GCCs as drivers of innovation and digital transformation.
In the early 2000s, GCCs primarily focused on managing the IT infrastructure, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and providing business process outsourcing (BPO) services. The aim here was largely to deliver cost and process efficiency rather than leading innovation.
However, between 2010 and 2015, GCCs evolved rapidly. Their scope moved beyond outsourcing to assuming a more strategic role in functions like customer service, research and finance. During this time, the adoption of cloud computing and other technologies also accelerated, which allowed multinational organisations to reduce their infrastructure costs and scale up their operations faster.
Simultaneously, with the uptake of robotic process automation (RPA), companies realised the value they could derive by automating repeated, rule-based tasks. This shift opened newer avenues and ushered the move to digital transformation and AI adoption, which remained the dominant themes between 2015 and 2020.
During this phase, when digital transformation was becoming a prominent theme, AI and automation became key enablers of any business transformation. Some major technological advancements included:
AI and machine learning (ML)
The integration of ML- and AI-powered tools across various business functions provided the impetus to GCCs to develop smarter AI solutions that could analyse large datasets to produce actionable insights and predict future trends.
Cognitive automation
With AI, RPA moved from performing simple task automation to handling more complex processes like document processing, decision-making and natural language processing (NLP)-driven customer service.
Chatbots and virtual assistants
AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants significantly improved customer service by managing higher volumes of customer interactions and transactional tasks. This enabled the GCCs to significantly improve their response rate and, thereby, customer satisfaction.
Big data analytics
The move to big data platforms allowed GCCs to store and process vast amounts of data, while helping organisations secure actionable insights faster than ever.
The period between 2020 and present day saw the rise of hyper automation and AI-powered automation at scale in Indian GCCs. With increasing automation complexity and global organisations demanding smarter, faster and more scalable solutions, Indian GCCs also shifted gears to embrace more advanced technologies to maintain their competitive advantage.
Driving impact with AI-powered automation
With every other organisation trying to offer differentiated offerings in the market, the imperative to reinvent is more urgent than ever before. Leaders have understood that in order to stay relevant in the future, they must tap into the power of technology to re-energise their business models and transform the way they work. AI and automation have therefore become pivotal levers of reinvention for modern enterprises, leading to GCCs becoming the reinvention engines.
Better decision-making
AI-powered analytics and ML algorithms have substantially enhanced the ability of GCCs to provide informed, data-led decisions with improved precision and speed. With predictive analytics, GCCs can proactively forecast business trends, streamline supply chains and improve the quality of customer experience for their parent organisation.
Automation and efficiency
While RPA is instrumental in automating routine processes, AI can automate more complex tasks. In addition to reducing error rates, this also leads to better efficiency by allowing humans to focus on more value-add activities.
Research and innovation
Over the years, Indian GCCs have become the innovation hubs for their global counterparts, with AI playing a central role in driving this shift. AI-powered research and development (R&D) initiatives are enabling GCCs to lead the development of new products or solutions, thereby ensuring continuous innovation.
Creating smarter industries
AI-powered automation solutions are being used across multiple industries, with GCCs in India playing a pivotal role in their implementation. By using AI technologies, GCCs are able to streamline operations, reduce costs, enhance customer experience and drive overall impact and innovation.
For example, in the banking and financial services industry, GCCs in India are helping global banks and other financial institutions to deploy intelligent systems that improve operational efficiency and regulatory compliance. These technologies are also transforming other areas within the industry – i.e. from customer service to fraud detection to loan processing.
In the healthcare sector, GCCs enable healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies to implement AI-powered automation solutions that can lead to better patient care, reduced operational inefficiencies and accelerated drug discovery.
Similarly in the retail and consumer sector, GCCs in India are at the forefront of implementing these technologies to personalise shopping experiences, optimise inventory management and supply chains, and improve customer experience.
In the technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) sector, GCCs are helping companies utilise AI-powered automation for better network management, predictive maintenance, customer support and service delivery optimisation. Further, the manufacturing industry is also seeing smarter production processes, better supply chains and enhanced quality control.
Way forward
The future of GCCs in India is poised to be shaped by continuous technological changes. As the advancements in AI, ML and automation continue, GCCs will further assume a more focal role in supporting global companies. More recently, with the emergence of agentic process automation, GCCs can combine the power of automation and AI agents to drive end-to-end digital transformation that cuts across the key pillars of any enterprise – people, process and technology.
AI-powered automation is therefore not just a trend – it is an opportunity for GCCs in India to become leaders in global innovation. By effectively leveraging these technologies, they can get ahead of the curve by introducing newer business models and creating greater value for the global market. Hence, as the world transitions towards more integrated and intelligent systems, GCCs in India may be well-positioned to lead this revolution from the front lines.
Sumit Srivastav
Partner and Leader, Intelligent Automation
Disha Thadani
Associate Director, Intelligent Automation
Contact us
Rajesh Ojha
Partner and Leader, Global Capability Centres, PwC India
