Listen

Pause Resume

When the Commonwealth Bank of Australia pulled 2,500 roles out of a Tata Consultancy Services contract and shifted them into its own Global Capability Centre (GCC) in Bengaluru, it wasn’t just another outsourcing deal gone sour. It was a signal. A signal that multinational corporations are increasingly bypassing India’s IT giants to build their own engineering and innovation muscle onshore.

And CBA is hardly alone. From Goldman Sachs using its Indian GCC for AI-driven fraud detection to Walmart building global supply chain platforms in-house, multinationals are rethinking the model that once defined India’s rise as the world’s outsourcing capital.

India’s GCC footprint has already crossed 1,700 centres in 2024, with projections of 2,200 by 2030. Collectively, they are expected to generate more than US$100 billion in revenue. This is a sharp leap from the 750 centres before 2010, underscoring just how decisively GCCs have moved from cost-arbitrage back offices to digital transformation hubs.

Today’s GCCs increasingly own high-value functions once guarded by IT services—AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity and even global R&D mandates. Amazon’s Indian GCC now leads product engineering for its AI innovations. Google is scaling local teams for fintech and analytics. Citibank and JPMorgan are using GCCs to rewire core financial functions. The list is growing, and so is the competitive heat.

Pressure on IT Majors

The impact is showing in quarterly results. According to Livemint, TCS grew just 3.8% in FY25 to US$30.18 billion in revenue, while Infosys, HCL Tech and Wipro hovered in the same low single digits—Wipro even contracting for a second year. Headcounts have barely budged. India’s top five IT firms collectively cut nearly 58,000 jobs over two years, a reversal for an industry long defined by hiring sprees.

Q1 FY26 painted a mixed picture: Infosys managed incremental revenue growth, but TCS reported a decline and HCL Tech saw profit margins plunge. Attrition still runs in the double digits. Even as IT majors chase patents and digital projects, the core challenge is clear: the work that once defined them is migrating elsewhere.

The Talent Drain

Perhaps the sharper edge of this competition is talent. According to Zinnov, GCCs offer junior employees 20–35% salary hikes, while senior AI and product management professionals now command up to ₹60 lakh a year. Entry-level packages can be double what IT firms offer. The Economic Times notes that GCCs routinely promise 30% jumps and 10–12% annual increments, far higher than IT service peers.

The result is a steady “one-way movement” of skilled professionals. According to a Times of India report, GCCs added over 100,000 new jobs in FY25, outpacing IT firms’ combined hiring. Engineers chasing innovation, global exposure, and better work-life balance are voting with their feet. And in a landscape where some Indian CEOs still advocate for 70-hour workweeks, GCCs’ relatively flexible culture adds another pull factor.

We have previously written about the war for talent in GCCs, which continues to tilt the balance.

A Visa Shock That Helps GCCs

The US decision to slap a US$100,000 fee on H1-B visas from September 2025 adds another twist. The hike is expected to push more Indian talent to return home, accelerating a reverse brain drain. While some argue Silicon Valley opportunities remain too strong, experts at Nascomm say the policy shift will likely redirect skilled professionals—particularly in AI and data—back into India’s ecosystem.

And where will they go? GCCs already pay 12–20% more than IT firms and media reports have pointed out that returning global Indians are gravitating toward GCCs to lead strategy and value creation, rather than cost-efficiency roles in IT. For more on the visa angle, see our earlier analysis on H1-B fee hikes.

The Bigger Pivot

What’s playing out is more than a turf war. It is India’s technology industry rewriting its own playbook. According to Zinnov, 86% of GCCs in India were already engaged in AI and ML projects in 2024, up from 65% in 2019. EY projects India’s GCC industry will touch US$110 billion by 2030, what many call,  a shift from labor-arbitrage to product development ecosystems.

IT services leaders argue for coexistence, but coexistence looks increasingly like competition. As observed in a LinkedIn blog, the IT industry risks stagnation if it doesn’t move beyond execution and into innovation.

The Commonwealth Bank’s pivot away from outsourcing is not an isolated move—it is emblematic of a deeper trend. GCCs are seizing strategic work, pulling in top talent, and shaping India into an innovation hub rather than a cost centre.

India’s IT majors still hold scale, global client trust, and decades of delivery expertise. But unless they climb the value chain faster, the balance of power will keep tilting toward GCCs. For India’s tech story, that makes this “zero-sum debate” less about who loses and more about who leads the next phase of growth.