Digital workplace

How can Global Capability Centers reshape today to reinvent tomorrow?

Authors

  • Arindam Sen

    EY India Global Business Services & Operations Partner

  • Subir Mehra

    EY India Operations and Business Services Partner

Contributors

4 minute read 14 Feb 2022
Related topics
Consulting
Digital
Technology
Workforce

The GCC Pulse survey 2021 offers a closer look at current trends and industry priorities among GCCs in India.

In brief

  • The GCC Pulse survey 2021 incorporates first-hand perspectives of 57 GCC leaders in India to unravel current trends and industry priorities including their strategies around adoption of emerging technologies, expansion of existing service portfolio, talent acquisition, return-to-work strategy, data privacy and cyber security.

In the post-pandemic world, Global Capability Centers (GCCs) have played a pivotal role in enabling organizational resilience by being at the forefront of driving innovation and operational efficiency for their parent organizations. GCCs have further taken responsibility for end-to-end product development, encompassing various technology stacks, user experience and compliance for consumer facing products. According to EY’s GCC (Global Capability Center) Pulse survey 2021, 74% of GCCs are acting as global hubs for digital skills and delivery. Most GCCs see themselves as an incubation engine with structured ideation processes that help generate, assess, and pilot new ideas. 68% of the GCCs in the survey are operationalizing their organization’s digital strategies by providing scale. 

We are increasingly seeing product-based innovation, use of technologies like artificial intelligence and analytics to drive process efficiency and enhanced service portfolio becoming key business drivers. With the abundant skilled digital talent in India and keeping future of work central to their strategy, GCCs can deliver on their digital transformation agenda.

Arindam Sen

EY India Global Business Services & Operations Partner

The ‘future is hybrid’

The GCC Pulse survey reveals that hybrid working post COVID is likely to become the new norm. One in two of our respondents believe that more than 50% of their workforce will continue to work remotely over the next 12 months. 89% of GCCs are ahead of the curve in the adoption of digital tools to promote collaboration and enhance virtual learning. They have also updated hiring practices for better on-boarding of remote workers. That said, GCCs recognize the need for redefining the employee value proposition (EVP) in the post pandemic era, with 64% planning to update and enhance their EVP.

The future of work is clearly ‘hybrid’ necessitating a focused effort to enhance the overall Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that has employees at the center.

In the past, employees were integrated into the organizational culture through in-person trainings, interactions and on the job learning. With most employees now remote, survey participants recognize the challenges associated in sustaining a culture that defines a company.

The resilience displayed by GCCs during the pandemic, has further strengthened their value proposition, to the enterprise. The future is about continuing to deliver on the transformation promise, while managing the current constraints around cost and capability.

Kunal Ghatak

Partner, Business Consulting, EY India, Global Business Services

Over the past 12 months, the growth in headcount at GCCs has not led to a proportionate increase in real estate usage. 80% of GCC leaders suggested their real estate investment have remained flat or been optimized over the past 12 months, reflective of the ‘future is hybrid’ trend. 

Impact on GCCs’ real estate investments

GCCs optimized their real estate investments in existing location
GCCs increased investment in real estate at existing locations
GCCs are planning to (or already using) shared workspaces to offer flexibility to employees

Digital agenda: Global Capability Centers (GCCs) and digital transformation

Digital transformation in the workplace has proven to be a source of competitive advantage for many businesses. GCCs in 2021 are ‘Growing Digital’ by providing scale, quality, and speed to the organization's digital agenda.

3 out of 4 GCCs consider themselves as an incubation ground for digital enablement and for expansion of the parent organization’s digital footprint

How EY can help

GCCs are seeking to deliver on the promise of digital transformation, by providing scale to operationalize digital strategies. 50% of the respondents stated that they were program managing such digital initiatives. 90% of the respondents are hiring for niche skills and retraining their existing staff on these skills. Some of the mature GCCs are also collaborating with the start-up ecosystems and academic institutions to scale these capabilities and roll out these digital solutions faster.

 

Massive increase in demand for technology skills

 

As GCCs continue to focus on transformation and innovation, the requirement for talent with niche skills continues to increase. Often, this talent pool is limited, with intense competition between IT Service Providers, Start-ups and GCCs, driving up salaries and increasing operational costs.

Upskilling and reskilling employees with niche and next-gen technology skills remains the need of the hour to augment the talent pipeline. In the long-term, collaboration with start-ups, industry bodies and educational institutions will also play a key role to build a business-deployable pool of resources. These steps will help GCCs continue to act as an innovation engine and driving new ideas across their organization.

Subir Mehra

EY India Operations and Business Services Partner

In the last 12-18 months, the demand for talent has grown exponentially for technology skills like AI/ML, ERP, Advanced Engineering (Java, .Net, Cloud) and cyber security. 

A large proportion of GCC leaders we spoke to were actively hiring for roles within these domains, considering such talent have become critical for the success of GCCs in their endeavor to drive digital transformation. This war for talent is now constraining the build out of newer capabilities within the GCCs.

Sunil Venkatesh

EY India Consulting Partner

How EY can help

Increase in hiring costs 

 

According to the GCC Pulse survey 2021, GCCs have primarily focused on hiring skilled and experienced talent, with 30% of new hires coming from other GCCs. The fact that GCCs have not built strong relationships with educational institutions (only 10% of the participants indicated campus hires as a significant source of talent) when compared to IT service providers further aggravates an already fragile situation. However, everyone who participated agreed that niche skill sets were critical for their digital transformation agenda.

 

Risk and Cybersecurity

 

A risk that is top of mind for GCCs is cyber security on the back of their employees working remotely. However, over the past 12 months, GCCs have built and expanded their cybersecurity teams to mitigate cyber threats.

of GCCs have a cybersecurity center of excellence (CoE) which enables threat detection and response management.
of GCCs believed that they had an optimized risk management process that is fully integrated with the business.

GCCs see their inability to deliver transformation programs at a desired pace as another major risk to their operations. About 50% of the respondents surveyed believe that there is an elevated risk to confidential information leakage due to increased cyber-attacks, especially among GCCs in financial services, pharmaceutical, and healthcare, due to the remote working environment.

  • 43% of the survey participants currently have cyber teams while a third have centers of excellence in other locations

Download: Global Capability Center (GCC) Pulse Survey 2021

PDF (5 MB)

Summary

The outlook of the GCC industry continues to be buoyant, with more global organizations looking to set-up their GCCs in India, thereby, creating additional employment opportunities and higher economic, social and reputational value for the country.

About this article

Authors

  • Arindam Sen
    EY India Global Business Services & Operations Partner
  • Subir Mehra
    EY India Operations and Business Services Partner

Contributors

Related topics
Consulting
Digital
Technology
Workforce

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