Why is India poised to lead the technology arbitrage era? And how are GCCs showing the way? 

India has been on a phenomenal run for the last two decades, riding the wave of relentless double-digit growth in IT and business process services powered by skilled talent in cost-effective regions. But the easy wins are drying up. The era of simply replacing onshore workers with offshore talent is coming to an end. It’s time to dig deeper, to uncover new, less obvious avenues of value. This means exploiting cutting-edge technologies that can supercharge operations, deliver lightning-fast data insights for a competitive edge, and open up ecosystems for expanding business horizons. We need tech that makes operations faster, slicker, smarter, and cheaper than ever before.

The Indian IT services industry must leap to a new S-curve, driven by technology arbitrage, to reclaim its hockey-stick growth trajectory. Global Capability Centers (GCCs) are leading the charge. GCCs’ explosive growth in India stems from their transformation of the “why India” value proposition from a purely cost-focused narrative to one that combines cost efficiency with innovation.

This recent executive roundtable supported by Publicis Sapient dived into how GCCs are shaping the “why, what, and how” of keeping India at the forefront of the technology arbitrage revolution. The roundtable tackled:

• Cracking the digital dichotomy: balancing cost pressures with rapid, scalable innovation.
• Redefining the services catalog to go beyond coding and transaction processing, pushing into engineering and R&D.
• Making IT services sexy again for India’s top talent, who are increasingly drawn to tech companies and startups.
• Building a killer ecosystem of in-house talent, third-party IT and BPO firms, tech providers, and startups.
• Fostering an “infinite mindset” among Indian GCC leaders, positioning them as global Chief Innovation Officers.
  
  

  India’s future is bright and blazing, but the light will fade with the same old. GCCs have a golden opportunity to evangelize the new Indian value proposition.