India GCCs - A Sandbox for Global Leadership

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was cursed to push a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down, condemning him to repeat this fruitless action for eternity. In today’s uncertain business environment, where there are multiple shifting variables, GCC leaders face the risk of falling into a similar Sisyphean ordeal. While external circumstances cannot be controlled, having a pipeline of leaders who have the mental elasticity of being able to pivot with a changing business environment is what will distinguish the leaders from the laggards.

7 years ago, India had only 115 global roles* in Global Capability Centers (GCCs). Today, India is home to more than 5,000 GCC leaders with global roles; attributable to the trust, capability, and domain expertise built over the years. Indian GCCs today claim a 42% share of product leadership, showcasing a whopping 120X increase in just a decade.

We believe that Global Roles will grow at a CAGR of 18.9% to house ~20K Global Roles by 2030

In order to drive success at scale, most things need a benchmark, and here are a few GCC leaders who have played a pivotal role in driving this global leadership narrative from India.

The questions that GCC leaders need to solve for is how can they drive more global leadership from India? But first and more importantly, why now?

• There is a definitive shift in the market from West to East and the epicenter of influence is likely to follow suit. The perception of India has evolved from cost arbitrage to skill arbitrage, and India is now well-poised to be perceived for its leadership arbitrage.
• The new generation of workforce values autonomy and a seat at the table. As global roles become the gateway for building more techno-business roles from India, it will further attract new-gen talent to GCCs.
• Indian GCCs today are characterized by scale and multi-functional capabilities, offering unparalleled advantages. The synergies across teams – both within and outside the organization – including System Integrators (SIs), Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), start-ups, and academia are unmatched globally. This robust ecosystem is being leveraged to drive exponential results across revenues, partnerships, and costs.
• The global need for Techno-Business competencies has increased and having just technical or business competencies in silos won’t suffice. India is well-positioned to build techno-business roles as a function of markets moving east, co-location of partner and vendor ecosystems, and technology-led proxies that are reducing the distance between engineers and customers.

While some companies have successfully built a strong leadership pipeline, those are far too rare. Zinnov has not only had a ringside seat for this evolution of intrapreneurial leadership and maturity but has also been a hands-on architect in institutionalizing the same across organizations.

GCC leaders who have cracked the code of global leadership have largely done so through individual brilliance. This often results in it being the proverbial boulder that is rolled up the hill, just to end up on ground zero again, especially when the India GCC or global leader changes roles.

So to build a disruption-proof leadership pipeline, GCC leaders must grasp 4 vital enablers: understanding talent, mapping succession plans, measuring intrapreneurship, and building techno-business skills. And all this, with the organization’s maturity as the underpinning foundation.

There is much more to unpack in constructing enduring leadership pipelines. Stay tuned as we delve deeper into the nuanced "how" of getting this right, in our next edition. Meanwhile, to pick our experts’ brains, contact us here.

For insights on the growth of Indian GCCs, company domain analysis, and future trends and challenges, download our report on India GCC:?A Sandbox for Global Leadership today!

*Global Roles are the job roles within an organization that have a global or international scope rather than being restricted to a specific region or country. Global Roles involve working with teams and stakeholders from various parts of the world, where these teams report into the global leader who is based out of India.