Global Capability Centre — HR Setup
India hosts a large and rapidly growing base of Global Capability Centres, and the people side is consistently the hardest part to get right. Cost arbitrage is the easy calculation. Building a centre that retains senior talent and is treated as more than a back office is the difficult one.
The problem
GCCs fail in a recognisable pattern. The centre is staffed quickly against headcount targets, compensation is benchmarked against the wrong peer group, and the roles are scoped as execution rather than ownership. Attrition among the strongest people begins in year two, because the ambitious ones can see the ceiling. What was built as a strategic centre becomes a high-turnover delivery function.
What this covers
- Organisation design for the centre, and how ownership is genuinely split with headquarters
- Compensation benchmarked against the right Indian peer set, not a home-country conversion
- Talent strategy for the local market, including which roles are genuinely scarce
- Leadership hiring for the centre head and functional leads
- The full statutory and compliance foundation, established from day one
- Culture and integration between the centre and headquarters
- Retention architecture — career paths, high-potential identification, succession
- HR operations, payroll and HRIS appropriate to the intended scale
Why me for this
Experience across IT, ITeS and BPO — including vCustomer India Services and Flodata Analytics as CHRO — combined with manpower planning and organisation restructuring work alongside McKinsey and Hay Group.
Common questions
What makes GCC hiring in India different from ordinary hiring?
You are competing for the same senior talent as established global centres that have been in the market for two decades and have a track record of real ownership. Compensation alone does not win those candidates. What decides it is the scope of the role and whether the centre is genuinely trusted with work that matters.
Which Indian city is best for a Global Capability Centre?
It depends on the function. Bengaluru and Hyderabad have the deepest engineering and product pools and the highest competition and cost. Pune and Chennai are strong for engineering and operations at a lower cost base. Delhi NCR is well suited to business services, analytics and shared services. The right answer follows from the roles you need, not from a general ranking.
Related
POSH Compliance & External Member
Internal Committee constitution, external member appointment, training and annual filings under the POSH Act, 2013.
Fractional CHRO
CHRO-grade judgement on a part-time retainer, for companies that need the thinking without the salary.
HR Function Set Up From Scratch
The complete people infrastructure — policies, letters, onboarding, payroll structure and compliance — built once, properly.