Talent-hungry GCCs fish for professionals at tech pools of IT firms

Global capability centres (GCCs) of foreign companies expanding their base in India are increasingly tapping India’s IT services companies for talent, with such hirings climbing up to 10 percentage points in two years.

The new headcount hired from IT services by the GCCs stood at 35-41% in fiscal year ending March 2024 (FY24) as compared with 24-30% in FY22, data sourced from mass recruitment firm Teamlease shows. In FY23, the number stood at 30-35%.

Experts believe there is a consistent shift in tech talent hiring across engineering, research & development (ER&D), business process management (BPM), and IT services. And as GCCs rapidly scale, they will need to imbibe some of the better talent practices of IT services companies, which have historically been hirers of the best engineering talent in the country.

“Over the past 30-40 years, IT services providers notably the tier-1s and select mid-tier players, have invested enormous resources in building capabilities for their own good in talent management. Over a period of time, providers have also built a very strong technical and management workforce that provide a strong business foundation,” said Somnath Chatterjee, founder of Prismforce, a software provider to the technology services sector.

Neeti Sharma, chief executive officer of Teamlease Digital, said, “In FY22, the initial wave of GCC expansions laid the foundation for operations and service delivery. The following year FY23 saw the growth of GCCs into multi-functional centers, driving demand for experienced IT professionals.”

Post-Covid slump

Meanwhile after the Covid boom, India’s homegrown technology services companies shed their workforce expansion showing a record dip of more than 70,000 employees in FY24. Even in the first half of the current year until September, five out of India's top six IT companies—Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and LTIMindtree hired just more than 17,500 employees. The smaller peers hire in a few hundreds.

On the other hand, GCCs, to the tune of over 1,700 in India as on March 2024, increased headcount in one year by around 2.4 lakh, up from around 1.66 million in FY23 to 1.9 million in FY24, as per industry body Nasscom.

“GCCs starting now or scaling rapidly do not have the luxury of time or infrastructure yet and except a few large, scaled ones, hiring is quite dependent on tapping into existing talent pools from IT services and other GCCs,” Chatterjee added.

Aveek Mukherjee, managing director and cofounder of Gloplax Solutions, which helps set up mid-sized GCCs, said: “GCC will hire from third parties because the other GCC employees are usually overpaid. And the third-party people employees are hardworking, have the right attitude and also happy with a 30-odd% salary increase. For certain skills, you require a GCC experience but I believe that would be less.”

Teamlease data highlighted that while new headcount has grown, net talent addition at GCCs from IT services has seen a dip at 18% in FY24 as against 32% a year ago. Therefore, skilled talent is coming from within GCCs.

“By FY24, a strategic pivot towards AI, digital transformation, and specialised skills such as AI/ML and cloud computing became the focus. This combination of automation, cost optimisation, and specialisation underscores the industry's ongoing adaptation to rapid technological advancements and market evolution, Teamlease’s Sharma said.

World’s largest corporations started establishing their GCCs in India over the past few decades to offer back office operations providing technical and administrative support to leverage India’s low-cost talent. Over the past few years, GCCs have expanded to build centres of excellence, do more research and innovation for the parent organisations based overseas by tapping the country's skilled engineering workforce.

According to Chatterjee, this is more so over the past one year when incremental growth and opportunities have been higher on the GCC front versus providers though that may change with growth looking up.

“…as GCCs become more mainstream, you would see at least the scaled ones investing big on building talent (vs buying talent laterally as it comes with higher factor costs). They also need to actively think of applying talent transformation levers that have worked well for the IT industry as at the end of the day it’s a very people driven business,” Chatterjee said.

The better performing GCCs are investing in creating flexible career pathways, upskilling programs, talent/opportunity marketplaces which can drive engagement and retention on one hand and keep delivery competitiveness intact, Prismforce’s Chatterjee added.