Why GCC-as-a-Service is Now a Top Priority for Indian IT

Why GCC-as-a-Service is Now a Top Priority for Indian IT  THE BELAMY Weekly Newsletter of AIM Monday, Jul 07, 2025 | By Amit Raja Naik For the better part of a decade, global capability centres (GCCs) have quietly pulled work away from Indian IT giants. What started as back offices for cost-saving gradually became tech centres with independent product charters, engineering teams, and even AI labs.  Every time a global bank or tech company opened a new centre in Bengaluru or Hyderabad, it often meant fewer outsourcing contracts for TCS, Infosys, Wipro and the rest. At one point, the rise of GCCs seemed like an existential threat; clients were skipping vendors entirely and building teams in-house. That narrative has started to change. In 2025, the Indian IT industry is no longer seeing GCCs as rivals but as revenue. This is not just a shift in attitude. It's a strategic pivot that has led companies to repackage their delivery expertise, infrastructure, compliance experience, and AI know-how into a full-blown service line.  GCC-as-a-Service, aka GaaS, is now being sold like a product—but, the question is, are clients buying it?  Before we answer that question, let's look at some of the top stories of the week.  Who needs a CS degree when vibes and tokens are building startups? From YC-backed founders to solopreneurs, AI-native platforms like Replit and Lovable are powering a new wave of instinct-led software, where code is written by agents, ideas ship in days, and MVPs sell before the ink on the pitch dries. "Unlimited" was never unlimited, and Cursor's users aren't coding quietly anymore. A sudden pricing overhaul and murky communication have sparked mass cancellations, Reddit outrage, and a crisis of trust for one of AI's fastest-growing dev tools. Cloudflare just slammed the gates on AI's free buffet. By blocking crawlers by default, it's forcing AI companies to pay up or stay out, reshaping the web's unwritten contract and sparking a new era of content sovereignty. Want a $10M AI job? Forget Stanford, queue up a Dota 2 lobby. The world's top AI researchers aren't just coding legends, they are battle-hardened MOBA veterans, proving that the real test for building agents was playing as one all along. Now, let's explore some exciting collaborations and exclusive insights from the AIM ecosystem, brought to you with a unique twist outside our standard editorial content.    Introducing Snowflake GCC Forum 2025 India's GCCs aren't just back offices anymore, they're global nerve centres. Join Snowflake's GCC Forum 2025 in Chennai on July 9 to discover how data, GenAI, and cloud-native strategies are reshaping enterprise DNA. Participate now. The AI Foundry by Tredence If you've been thinking about what comes after GenAI, this is it. Tredence is hosting an invite-only AI Foundry in Bengaluru on July 26, 2025. It's a hands-on, high-signal gathering to explore agentic systems, multi-agent orchestration, and real-world GenAI deployments. Register here [Branded] In a world where data breaches cost millions, TiDB Cloud locks the vault by design. With Zero Trust architecture, real-time monitoring, and compliance baked into its core, TiDB is redefining how modern enterprises secure and scale their data infrastructure. [Sponsored] Enterprises don't need more data—they need smarter access. At DES 2025, Starburst made the case for ditching data silos and ETL headaches in favour of open lakehouses, query federation, and RAG-powered AI workflows built for speed, scale, and security. [Promotions] No code? No problem. Your next startup idea just needs a sentence. With Hostinger Horizons, you can now build and launch full-fledged web apps using just natural language—no devs, no delays. Try it free (Get 10% off with code AIMHOSTINGER) IIT Gandhinagar x MachineHack If you've got data chops, now's the time to prove it. Join the ML Decode and Data Sage hackathons by MachineHack and IIT Gandhinagar—solve real-world problems, top the leaderboard, and unlock an exclusive masterclass from IIT faculty. Register here before July 24.  Coming back to the love-hate relationship between Indian IT and GCCs, what was once a quiet rivalry is now being turned into a billion-dollar business model. From Captive Threat to Commercial Product Earlier this month, LTIMindtree officially launched its GCC-as-a-service platform. The pitch was simple: instead of spending months and millions figuring out how to build a GCC in India, companies could simply plug into LTIM's stack. Legal entity setup, infrastructure, office space, hiring, onboarding, delivery governance, AI tooling—it's all bundled into a single offering.  LTIMindtree has layered this with its internal BlueVerse platform, which includes over 300 AI agents and domain-specific capabilities, effectively allowing enterprises to launch an AI-native GCC from day one. CEO Venu Lambu made the company's positioning clear: GCCs are no longer about cost; they are strategic innovation hubs, and Indian IT is best placed to help global firms build them. LTIMindtree wasn't alone in making this move. Days earlier, Quess Corp, one of India's largest staffing and workforce solutions providers, launched Origint, a new business vertical focused entirely on helping enterprises set up and run high-performing GCCs.  The Rise of GCC-as-a-Service Leaders These consecutive launches are not merely isolated actions; they are part of a broader shift within Indian IT. Since the beginning of this year, nearly every major firm—Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech, Tech Mahindra and Cognizant—has appointed a dedicated head for its GCC business. Even Cognizant, which has more employees in India than most Indian firms, appointed Sailaja Josyula to scale its GCC services business, despite having flagged client-run GCCs as a risk in its annual report last year. The appointments underscore the seriousness of this bet. GCCs are no longer viewed as competitors, but as high-value, multi-year, AI-led clients. The shift makes sense. Building a GCC from scratch is capital-intensive and time-consuming. The new GCC-as-a-service model removes that friction. By allowing global firms to outsource the complexity of real estate, compliance, tech infra, and talent pipelines—without giving up control over strategy—Indian IT has found a way to turn disruption into opportunity. The opportunity is huge.  India is now home to over 1,600 GCCs. In 2024 alone, 120 new centres were launched. These added 1.8 lakh new jobs in a single year, with the segment expected to reach $105 billion in value by 2030 and contribute up to 3.5% of India's GDP. Companies like Microsoft, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Amazon are no longer just testing the waters; they are running core global functions out of their India GCCs. Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani said as much at the company's recent AGM. He called GCCs "critical clients," highlighting that the latest wave isn't about cost arbitrage but innovation arbitrage.  Talent, AI, and the New Value Chain Meanwhile, the hiring shift also reveals a trend. According to NASSCOM, 64% of GCCs expect fresher hiring to grow over 20% in 2025. Many are paying 25–30% higher salaries than IT services firms and are sourcing aggressively from tier 2 and 3 colleges. A growing number are prioritising skills over degrees, looking at GitHub portfolios and internship experience instead of pedigree. [Must Watch] Tune into AIM TV to check out our latest Front Page episode on — Why GCCs Want More Freshers Than Indian IT — and how tier 2 grads are becoming the new MVPs of global tech. In many ways, the talent pipeline that once belonged to IT services firms is now moving to GCCs. The model offers better pay, clearer product charters, and greater learning exposure, making it increasingly attractive for freshers. This pivot toward GCC-as-a-service also comes at a time when Indian IT is under pressure. The past year has seen mass layoffs, delayed onboarding, shrinking bench time, and declining headcount across major firms. AI is replacing low-level IT work, and clients are demanding more value for less spend.  The Final Word The playbook has changed. Indian IT no longer wants to be the vendor. It wants to be the builder, the orchestrator, the co-pilot. GCC-as-a-service is more than a revenue stream—it's a reset button. With thousands of GCCs expected to be launched over the next five years, the companies that can productise the build-and-run experience will not only stay relevant but define what enterprise tech delivery looks like in the next decade. Indian IT isn't losing to GCCs anymore. It's selling them. If you enjoyed reading this, do share it with your friends, colleagues, or that one LinkedIn connection who won't stop talking about Indian IT and the rise of GCCs. For Brand collaborations, write to info@aimmediahouse.com You received this email because you signed up to the updates from AIM. Click here to unsubscribe if you do not want to receive emails from us.