The GCC Delusion: Why Moving Up the Value Chain Has Mostly Been a Myth.

For more than a decade, India's Global Capability Centre (GCC) ecosystem has been one of the world's great business success stories.

The numbers have been extraordinary. More than 1,800 GCCs, hundreds of thousands of knowledge workers, and a steady stream of multinational corporations expanding their India footprint. Every new technology wave—cloud, digital transformation, analytics, automation, and now artificial intelligence—has been accompanied by a familiar promise:“GCCs will move up the value chain.”

Yet despite years of discussion, many GCCs remain heavily concentrated around operational execution, process management, support functions, and scalable delivery models. 

The recent decision by Opendoor to shut down its India operations and relocate work closer to its customer markets has reignited an important debate across the industry. The company cited evolving operating requirements, AI-driven efficiencies, and proximity to customers rather than talent quality as key factors in its decision.

The larger question is not about one company. It is about whether the traditional GCC model is approaching an inflection point.

The Real Threat Isn't Offshoring. It's Task Elimination.

For years, business leaders viewed globalization through the lens of geography.

Work moved from high-cost locations to lower-cost locations. Today, AI is changing the equation. Increasingly, the question is not where work gets done. Its whether the work needs to be done by humans at all. This distinction matters.

Historically, labour arbitrage rewarded organizations that could deliver repeatable work efficiently at scale. AI rewards organizations that can eliminate, automate, augment, or redesign that work entirely. The implications for GCCs are profound.

Many of the activities that fuelled the rapid growth of global delivery models are precisely the activities most vulnerable to automation:

• Transaction processing

• Documentation and reporting

• Operational support

• Manual testing

• Process-driven knowledge work

• Standardized customer operations

• Repeatable analytical workflows

The risk is not that GCCs disappear. The risk is that organizations discover they need significantly fewer people to deliver the same outcomes.

The Headcount Trap

One of the most persistent misconceptions in the GCC ecosystem is the assumption that growth equals strategic relevance.

For years, success has been measured through metrics such as:

• Number of employees

• Scale of operations

• Number of functions migrated

• Cost savings delivered

• Expansion of delivery capabilities

These metrics made sense in a labour-intensive operating model. They become less relevant in an AI-native enterprise.

In an environment where AI agents can augment the productivity of entire teams, enterprise leaders will increasingly evaluate GCCs based on business impact rather than workforce size. Industry observers have noted a broader shift toward outcome-based models, AI-led productivity, and leaner operating structures across global technology and services organizations. The future GCC will not necessarily employ more people. It will be expected to create more value.

The Next Evolution of the GCC Model

The most successful GCCs are already beginning to redefine their purpose.

Instead of functioning primarily as execution engines, they are positioning themselves as strategic business capability centres. This transition requires ownership in areas that cannot be easily automated or commoditized.

Why Reskilling Alone Won't Be Enough

Much of the current industry conversation focuses on reskilling. Reskilling is necessary, yet not sufficient. Teaching employees to use AI tools does not automatically transform a GCC into a strategic asset. The bigger challenge is structural.

Many GCCs were originally designed around scale, process excellence, governance, and operational efficiency. Those strengths remain important, but they are no longer enough to guarantee long-term relevance.

The next generation of GCCs must be designed around:

• Innovation ownership

• Product thinking

• Business accountability

• AI-first operating models

• Cross-functional decision making

• Enterprise value creation

This requires a fundamental redesign of operating models—not simply workforce training.

A Defining Moment for India's GCC Ecosystem

India remains one of the world's most important talent hubs and that is unlikely to change. What may change is the type of work that creates enterprise value.

The coming decade will likely reward GCCs that combine deep domain expertise, AI capabilities, product ownership, and strategic influence. Those that remain dependent on labour-intensive operating models may find themselves under increasing pressure as enterprises seek higher productivity and greater automation.

For years, the defining question for GCCs was:

How many jobs can this centre create?

The defining question for the AI era is different:

How much business value can this centre own?

The organizations that answer that question first will become indispensable strategic assets.

The rest may discover that scale alone is no longer a sustainable competitive advantage.