GCC is truly successful when it becomes another headquarters: Accenture India GCC lead

While global firms are increasingly looking at India to house their next-generation innovation hubs, the real challenge is in letting go of the control of headquarters.

Global Capability Centres (GCCs) will have achieved true success when they are no longer referred to as GCCs but seen as full-fledged headquarters, according to Accenture’s India GCC lead, Kanwar Singh.

“The true test of a successful GCC is that the enterprise stops calling it a GCC and it’s just another headquarters for them,” Singh told Moneycontrol in an interaction.

The world’s largest IT firm refers to this transition as the rise of "HQ2", where the Indian GCC is treated as a second global headquarters, with global leadership roles, decision-making power, and end-to-end ownership of initiatives such as data, AI, and product development.

A GCC is a captive unit set up by a company to carry out information technology (IT) and related business functions. India is home to almost 1,700 GCCs, employing close to 20 lakh, and is poised to contribute 3.5 percent to India’s GDP by 2030.

Accenture has over 3.5 lakh employees in India, and Kanwar, the 18-year-old company veteran, heads the GCC focus in India. IT companies have doubled down on GCCs and are increasingly establishing dedicated GCC units and heads to cash in on the surge in demand.

On May 19, 2025, HCLTech appointed Kiran Cherukuri as head of its GCC practice, amid a wave of similar leadership moves by peers including Wipro and Cognizant.

Singh said that technology is no longer supporting the business, but rather is the business. “If that’s your IP, your differentiator, then it makes sense to own it internally, and that’s where GCCs come in,” he added.

Letting go of control

Despite the narrative shift of GCCs transforming from back offices, Accenture’s research suggests that only around 8 percent of GCCs today have a seat at the table when it comes to deciding what gets built, when about 80 percent of these captives are actually building the digital core.

While global firms are increasingly looking at India to house their next-generation innovation hubs, the real challenge is in letting go of the control of headquarters. “The most difficult part is letting go of controls,” Singh highlighted.

This shift requires companies to move beyond treating GCCs as offshore execution units and start giving them autonomy and ownership.

Instead of giving instructions from global headquarters, companies need to allow their GCCs to define what gets built. This transition, Singh said, brings in an important layer of change and management, which many firms are still struggling with.

“Digital core is the foundation that you can leverage to build new products, but it's not what you call a value that the enterprise CEO will see. Organisations will change (but) what you don't want is 4-5 years from now, is that someone says 'why do we have this centre in India?'” he said further.

To tackle this, the Dublin-headquartered firm is positioning itself not as a competitor to GCCs but as a “reinvention” partner. The company has also invested in the GCC consulting firm ANSR to support clients that require full-spectrum setup capabilities.

“It is (Accenture-ANSR partnership) working very well. We're working on a lot of projects together, several projects on client requirements, and especially where clients need acceleration in their GCC setup,” Singh said.

On July 26, 2024, ANSR and Accenture announced the partnership, wherein Accenture infused close to $170 million (approximately Rs 1,400 crores). Accenture's North American Chief Executive Officer, Manish Sharma, joined the ANSR board of directors after the IT behemoth acquired an equity stake.

GCCs vs IT: To fight or discourage?

The rise of GCCs has often led to a debate within the IT services industry, whether to view them as competition or partner with them. The issue is widely assumed to be settled now, with various IT companies setting up GCC divisions to capitalise on the opportunity.

Also, read: GCCs not 'cannibalising' IT services revenue, says Capgemini's Ananth Chandramouli

Singh said Accenture was not driven by urgency or industry pressure in the debate of IT versus GCC.

“There was a time when if I met my industry peers, there was a thing of should we fight or discourage. We have never fought it because we have always, as Accenture, had a seat at the table with the clients to solve for the right thing,” Singh explained.

Instead, the firm focused on advising clients on what made strategic sense.

In cases where setting up a GCC aligned with long-term goals, Accenture supported and in others, it recommended caution.

Also, read: GCCs outpace IT in 2024; way ahead in job addition, export revenue