HYDERABAD: India’s mid-market GCCs (global capability centres) 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 2.1 lakh employees, 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 units in the country. In the last five years, more than 110 new facilities were set up, 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.
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.
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.While mid-market GCCs often start as outposts like their larger peers, they tend to progress 1.2 times faster along the maturity curve.
