By Anupriya Thakur, Partner, Consulting, Korn Ferry India
India’s GCCs have already won the scale argument. Over two decades, they have demonstrated delivery excellence, operational discipline, and talent depth that no other ecosystem can match. That story is settled.
The more interesting story – and the harder one – is what comes next.
Traditionally, GCC success was anchored in three metrics: cost efficiency, quality, and speed of delivery. Today, these metrics are necessary but insufficient. The next stage demands a decisive pivot – from service delivery to value creation, from output to outcomes and from support to influence.
In this model, value is defined by innovation, business insight, specialized expertise, solution creation and building differentiated intellectual capital.
The question is no longer: “Can India deliver?”
The question is: “Can India influence outcomes, shape decisions, and help create what’s next?”
Many organizations are not ready to answer yet. Not because the talent isn’t there – it is – but because readiness hasn’t caught up with the ambition.
The readiness challenge: Skillset, mindset, and culture
The good news is that India is not starting from scratch. We have exceptional talent, deep functional expertise, and world-class delivery capabilities.
However, capabilities that drive success in a delivery-led model are not sufficient in a value-led design. This gap shows up in three interconnected dimensions.
Skillset: Redefining technical leadership
Technical leadership now begins long before execution – it begins with conceptualizing and designing the next generation of products and solutions that will power enterprise growth.
Technical talent must participate upstream. While deep technical expertise remains the foundation, it must now be complemented by system thinking, customer and industry understanding and executive communication needed to translate technical insight into business value. The expectation is shifting from “Can you build this?” to “Can you define what should be built – and why it matters?” Most talent models are still optimized for the first question.
Mindset: Moving beyond the support narrative
The deeper challenge is not capability – it is identity. Even as skillsets evolve, many leaders continue to operate from a participation mindset: they contribute well, execute reliably, align closely.
The next phase demands a shift from participation to influence and influence is rarely assigned. It is earned through expertise, perspective, ownership mindset and demonstrated value creation. The leaders breaking through are those who have stopped waiting for permission to contribute strategically.
Culture: Enabling co-creation by design
If skillset defines what talent can do, and mindset defines how they see their role, culture determines whether that potential translates into impact.
The next phase requires an environment that enables access over hierarchy, trust over control, visibility over containment and shared accountability over task ownership so that outcomes are co-owned and not delivered in fragments. The strongest GCCs will build a culture where talent is trusted with consequential work, expertise is visible to the right stakeholders, and opportunities are not rationed by geography.
Creating this culture is an intentional exercise. This is where global sponsors and enterprise leaders play a critical role. Their job is not only to drive business outcomes, but also to ensure talent has access to client conversations, strategic initiatives and growth opportunities regardless of where they sit.
What must change: 3 imperatives for GCC leaders
For GCC heads and CHROs, this is not a future-state challenge, the time is now.Don’t assume teams will instinctively evolve from service delivery to strategic influence. Define what “good” looks like – client-centricity, commercial thinking and measurable value creation. Make the new expectations explicit, the desired behaviors visible, and success measures clear. People rise to expectations they understand.
- Hire and Develop for Trajectory, Not Just Today
Technical expertise gets talent in the door; learning agility, curiosity, consulting orientation, executive communication, and relationship-building determine how far they go. Hire for both today’s capabilities and tomorrow’s potential. The skills of the future can be developed, but only if the mindset is already there. Redesign leadership development. The next generation requires a different curriculum – one that develops advisors, influencers, and enterprise thinkers.
- Create Sponsorship, Not Just Exposure
Access is not a perk; it is a growth accelerator. Enterprise leaders are built through meaningful sponsorship, strategic projects, executive visibility, and cross-border collaboration—not observation from the sidelines. High-potential talent needs advocates who create opportunities, not just mentors who offer advice. The closer teams are to the real problems clients are navigating, the stronger their ability to create differentiated value.
What this moment requires
In our work with the world’s leading organizations and through conversations with CEOs, Managing Directors, GCC Heads, and Acceleration Centre leaders – one thing stands out. The ambition is already there. The excitement is real.
And that is what makes this moment so exciting.
This is not a story about capability, scale, or delivery. India has already proven that. The next opportunity is bigger. To influence. To advise. To innovate. To lead.
The gap is between aspiration and architecture. That shift from – executing strategy to helping create it – is the only transformation that matters now.
What comes next will depend on how boldly leaders embrace a growth mindset, how confidently teams step into advisory roles, and how intentionally organizations create opportunities for talent to contribute beyond execution.
And if the passion and belief of today’s GCC and GBS leaders is any indication, India’s most exciting chapter is still being written.
