Looking Ahead with Indian GCCs: Leadership, Culture, Revenue Impact

Introduction

India continues to be one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. In the last two years alone, 150+ GCCs have set up their operations in India, while 65% of the GCCs in India have headquarters in the US, UK, and EU.

On the second day of the first hybrid NASSCOM GCC Conclave, held in-person at HICC, Hyderabad, our esteemed speakers unearthed the future path of GCCs along with trends and challenges that GCCs are facing. We have gathered valuable takeaways from our sessions on leadership, building a culture of customer delight and technological advances in this article.

Masterclass: Do you think all low code is created equal?

The day began with a masterclass by Subrato Bandhu, Regional Vice President, OutSystems India who busted some common myths on low code and outlined winning themes around Enterprise Low Code Applications such as creating multi-experience, seamless integrations, legacy modernization, secure designs, intelligent automation and more.?

Workshop: Building Endearing Products through Storytelling & Design Thinking?

Kuru Subramaniam, Director of Product Management at Publicis Sapient delivered a valuable workshop on the design thinking process, which included defining the problem, understanding and empathizing with the user, building proof of concept, defining the new process, validating POC, and finding solutions through a three-step process of research, ideation, and hypothesis.

Masterclass: Resolving the generational challenge of process inefficiencies

The second masterclass of the day on resolving the generational challenge of process inefficiencies with Malhar Kamdar & Anita George of Celonis revolved around execution management systems to remove inefficiencies and using data–gathering, generating insights, and triggering action – to envision new ways to run businesses.

Session XV: Keynote: An Outlook for the Decade of Action

Sri. K.T Rama Rao, Minister of Municipal Administration & Urban Development, Industries & Commerce, and Information Technology, Govt of Telangana gave an insightful keynote speech highlighting Hyderabad’s liveability, stable government, talent, innovation ecosystem, and infrastructure being the reasons for homing prominent GCCs in India. He shed light on the growth of GCCs in India, and the environment created by the Government of Telangana in aiding the growth.

Session XVI: Leaders’ Discussion: How can GCCs reinvent today, to rebuild for the future brighter spots?

Debjani Ghosh, President of NASSCOM along with Manu Saale, Managing Director & CEO, Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India, and Gunjan Samtani, Partner & Head, Goldman Sachs Services India shared important GCC trends like blockchain, quantum computing, IoT, NLP, and data generation. They highlighted how the world is looking at India as a future global leader that will shape the future of technology and the need to rethink strategies, the role that Indian GCCs play for the parent organization and being confident in the value we provide.

Session XVII: Leaders’ Discussion: Are we ready for revenue impact?

Discussing the readiness of GCCs for creating revenue impact, Mamatha Madireddy, Managing Director and Head of Operations HSBC GSC, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Vizag, Sudish Panicker, Managing Director and Head, BNY Mellon International Operations, India and Eric Simonson, Managing Partner, Research, Everest Group spoke about the need for culture reboot and a changed leadership mindset from service provider to value creator. They also emphasized the need to hire for where one wants to be in the future, keeping diversity of capability and thought in mind.

Session XVIII: Leaders’ Discussion: Trifecta for a competitive edge – Data, Customer-Centricity, and Purpose.?

Sastry Durvasula, Chief Information and Client Service Officer, TIAA, and Sravana Kumar Karnati, SVP/CTO, Walmart International along with Sandhya Chaudhary, COO, Wells Fargo International talked about data, customer-centricity, and purpose as the trifecta for a competitive advantage and shared remarkable transformation and cultural change capabilities for success for GCCs.

Session XIX: Fireside Chat: Strategies and Drivers to Create Customer Delight

During a Fireside Chat between Punit Sood, Chairman, NASSCOM GCC Council, & Head of India & Head of International Hubs, NatWest Group and Gaurav Gupta, Partner Deloitte India valuable insights were shared on strategies and drivers to create customer delight. They spoke about the need for GCCs to become more agile and how GCC leaders can support the team, their ideas and the changes they would want to implement for better customer experiences.

Session XX: Leaders’ Discussion: Driving an Optimal Cloud Strategy to Accelerate Digital Transformation

Industry leaders Jaya Kumar K, Vice President & Managing Director, Sabre Global Capability Center, Bengaluru; Mohit Kapoor, Group CTO, Mahindra Group; Jaikumar Subramanian, Partner & Executive Director, IBM Consulting, India South Asia along with Jaspreet Singh, Partner and GCC & GIC Industry Leader, Grant Thornton Bharat shed light on how having cloud strategies are no longer optional in the future. They highlighted how today’s customer is digitally savvy and the cloud can create the ecosystem to enable, optimize and improve their experience in an agile, innovative manner.

Session XXI: Leaders’ Discussion: A Founders’ Guide to Growth and Impact

We then had startup founders Ravi Daparthi, Co-Founder & CTO, Oorwin Labs and Sunil Maddikatla, Founder & CEO, BlueSemi joins us along with Radhika Choudary, Co-Founder & Director, Freyr Energy Services Private Limited who shared lessons and challenges while building a successful business. They touched upon an involved team, a culture of innovation, effective scaling capabilities, a product-love customer experience, and design thinking as some of the key pillars.

Session XXII: Guest Speaker: Emerging Power Shifts: Trends that will shape this TECHADE!

Giving a 360-degree view on the trends that will shape this ‘Techade’, we had Simon Baptist, Global Chief Economist, The Economist Intelligence Unit speak about how the pandemic and the recent war have changed businesses – from localizing supply chains to geo-politicization of technology. He spoke about how trends such as input price volatility and talent shortage can pose risks and also outlined some opportunities that arise, especially for Asia – from urbanization to an innovative tech ecosystem. He also touched upon trends that could create opportunities in various industries – resumption of travel (service), online sales (automotive), cloud (telecom), data regulation (IT), energy security, new skills, and sustainability.

Session XXIII: Guest Speaker: Leadership Lessons: Building a Winning Spirit

Ending the day on a high, we had Dronacharya Awardee and National Badminton Coach, Vimal Kumar, Co-Founder, Director and Chief Coach, Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy talking to Vasanthi Hariprakash, Founder-Storyteller, Pickle Jar on building a winning spirit. Vimal shared the story of his badminton journey with Prakash Padukone and drew parallels between coaching a player and leading a team. He highlighted resilience, fearlessness, sincerity and passion as pillars and drivers for leadership.

Conclusion

It is imperative for Indian GCCs to think about winning leadership, building a culture of customer delight and looking ahead keeping emerging trends in mind to become ready for creating a greater revenue impact. GCCs are pivoting towards creating India’s reputation as a global tech hub with cutting-edge technology, products, cultural integration, new business models and partnerships, evolving digital skillsets and innovative mindset.

This year’s NASSCOM GCC Conclave with the theme ‘Leaning in for impact in the Networked World’ celebrates the rise of GCCs in India as the leader among the capability centres’ landscape.

?June 28 & 30, 2022

?https://nasscom.in/gcc/