India’s global capability centres have spent years establishing their importance to multinational enterprises through technology delivery, workforce expansion and operational efficiency. But as these centres assume more complex responsibilities, the traditional measures of growth are becoming less adequate. A large technology workforce and a strong delivery record do not, by themselves, establish whether a GCC is shaping the enterprise’s future or simply executing its existing priorities.
The more consequential test is whether a centre can take ownership of business and technology outcomes, develop capabilities that benefit the wider organisation and turn experimentation into solutions that deliver sustained value.
For Vijai Kishan, India Site Lead and Head of India Enterprise Technology at Fidelity Investments India, this distinction marks the next phase of the GCC model. The transition, he argues, requires a shift in accountability, with teams moving beyond predefined assignments to become trusted partners in achieving the parent organisation’s strategic objectives.
“The fundamental shift is from being responsible for delivering a piece of work to taking ownership of a business or technology outcome in partnership with the enterprise,” Kishan says.
The distinction goes beyond expanding the remit of technology teams. It changes what the enterprise should expect from its India operations and how those operations must organise themselves to deliver value.
From delivering work to owning outcomes
A GCC can execute a technology mandate efficiently without necessarily taking responsibility for the business problem behind it. Ownership demands a deeper understanding of why a solution is needed, how it fits into enterprise priorities and what it must achieve.
That requires engineering expertise to work alongside business-domain knowledge. It also requires teams to develop the confidence and capability to contribute beyond the boundaries of an assigned task.
Kishan sees engineering and operational excellence as inseparable from business ownership. The ability to deliver reliably remains important, but its strategic significance depends on whether it advances the enterprise’s wider objectives.
Organisational design can either enable or constrain this shift. Kishan points to a hybrid of centralised and decentralised teams, fewer layers of control and greater empowerment as ways to help organisations develop and deliver solutions faster and at scale.
The implication is that strategic responsibility cannot be established through a change in designation alone. Teams need the expertise to make meaningful contributions and an organisational environment that allows them to exercise ownership.
“Ultimately, the measure is not where the work is performed, but the level of ownership, expertise, and impact that the GCC brings to the enterprise,” he says.
The problem with measuring growth by scale
The shift towards accountability also challenges the conventional equation between GCC expansion and value creation. More employees, additional responsibilities and larger delivery operations can demonstrate organisational growth. They do not necessarily reveal how much more capable the enterprise has become.
Kishan believes the emphasis must move towards the impact a centre creates rather than the size of its operations.
That impact need not be measured exclusively through direct revenue gains or cost reductions. A GCC can create value by developing platforms that serve multiple business requirements, improving engineering processes, building specialised expertise and enabling products and solutions to reach the market faster.
These contributions may be less immediately visible than headcount growth, but they can strengthen the enterprise’s ability to innovate and execute over time.
Kishan describes Fidelity Investments India’s own journey in terms of increasing value through domain expertise, delivery across business groups and a focus on innovation. His broader argument is that GCCs must develop capabilities that extend beyond individual assignments and contribute to the parent organisation’s longer-term objectives.
The test, therefore, is not whether a centre has grown, but whether that growth has expanded what the enterprise can accomplish.
Innovation is not the number of experiments
Innovation presents another test of whether GCCs are delivering substantive value or simply adopting the language of strategic transformation.
Technology laboratories, research teams and proofs of concept can create opportunities for discovery. But the existence of these programmes does not establish whether an organisation has solved a business problem or developed a capability that can be deployed at scale.
At Fidelity Investments India, Kishan says, advanced technology labs and research teams examine the core business, industry trends and emerging technologies to identify opportunities for innovation and implementation.
The important distinction is what follows experimentation. An idea must demonstrate its relevance to a business problem, offer a credible path to adoption and produce capabilities that can be sustained and scaled.
“Meaningful innovation is ultimately reflected in business impact, adoption, scale and sustained ownership, and not simply in the number of innovation initiatives undertaken,” he adds.
This also challenges the assumption that innovation must always involve adopting a new technology or creating something unprecedented. Building scalable platforms using existing technologies can deliver significant value when it helps the enterprise develop and launch solutions faster.
For GCC leaders, investment decisions should therefore begin with the problem to be solved, not the novelty of the technology. Experimentation matters, but its purpose is to establish where a technology can deliver meaningful and sustainable business value.
Talent is only part of the equation
India’s technology talent remains central to the GCC opportunity, but access to skilled professionals does not automatically translate into strategic influence.
Kishan argues that the ability to understand the business, build deep domain expertise, learn continuously and contribute to enterprise outcomes is equally important. A centre’s influence develops through the value it delivers and its ability to align technology capabilities with the priorities of the wider organisation.
This distinction is particularly relevant as enterprises consider how much responsibility to entrust to their India operations. Strategic contribution requires more than technical proficiency. It depends on whether teams can connect their expertise to business requirements and take responsibility for developing solutions that address them.
For Kishan, the next phase of the GCC model will be defined by impact, ownership of solutions and engineering excellence. The ability to learn and adapt as technology evolves will remain a critical advantage.
“The question today is not just talent availability. It is about whether organisations can create the right environment for talent to exercise ownership, develop deep expertise, and deliver long-term business value,” he points out.
India’s GCCs have demonstrated that they can deliver technology work at scale. The next challenge is to establish how effectively they can translate that capability into sustained enterprise value. That transition will depend not simply on the sophistication of their technology or the size of their workforce, but on whether they are equipped to take greater responsibility for the outcomes their work is meant to achieve.