From Bengaluru, with structure: The boutique firms behind global GCCs

That model—outsourcing the back office—put Indian tech giants like TCS, Infosys and Wipro on the global map. But there’s another, increasingly popular route.

Instead of outsourcing, the pizza chain could build its own tech and support arm in India—one it fully owns and operates. That’s where consulting firms like ANSR, Gloplax, Stratinfinity, and Bridgepath Innovations come in. They help global companies set up Global Capability Centres (GCCs)—captive hubs that manage everything from hiring and compliance to infrastructure and day-to-day operations.

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Most of the consulting companies helping MNCs were set-up after the pandemic. None of them have more than 50 people. Their scope of work includes helping the GCCs get land, legal clearances, and hiring talent.

ANSR: Turnkey giant

The biggest in the consulting business, and one of the oldest, is ANSR.

Bengaluru-based ANSR was established in 2003. It employs 150,000 people to run more than 150 GCCs in the country today.

The company sets up GCCs in three phases: design, establishment and running.

As part of the design phase, ANSR guides the MNC on picking the right city to set up shop in, hire the talent, handle the legal compliances, and sets up an organisational structure. This phase typically takes up to eight weeks.

Once the design is approved, ANSR sets up the GCC and this takes up another eight weeks.

“Then you get into operations (the last phase), where we could support our customers long-term—five years, three years, 10 years, or 20 years,” said Lalit Ahuja, chief executive of ANSR.

“On an ongoing basis, we run their offices, and we have a massive footprint of 11 million square feet. Our customers don’t have to be distracted by what it takes to run an office, to run an internet circuit, to provide security, all of that,” said Ahuja.

ANSR charges one price for everything. This is typically 30% the cost of running a GCC.

While ANSR has established its presence in the country, its business is now being challenged by the emergence of smaller players, who merely rely on the consulting aspect and partner with other service providers to keep costs low.

These companies, such as Gloplax and Bridgepath Innovations, take only a cut for the consulting-led services that they offer to the parent companies rather than having an annual contract with the GCC they are establishing and running.

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Mint could not ascertain the financials of these smaller companies and their managements declined to share their financials.

Gloplax: Building GCCs without running them

Much like ANSR, Bengaluru-based Gloplax offers consulting services to clients but does not run the services of the GCC.

Gloplax was set-up in August 2019 by Aveek Mukherjee, a former Wells Fargo executive, who was an integral aspect in setting up the financial services company’s GCC operations in India. Mukherjee is also the managing director.

For Gloplax, the focus is on understanding the company at a deeper level. The consulting company sends its employees to the parent company to understand processes and based on that assessment, suggests an operating model including a job structure and talent acquisition. But it does not run the delivery centre.

“We’ll give you operating models, you know, hiring the right people. We’ll sit with you and get the job description straightened out. Make sure that all the structures you’re creating for those delivery teams are actually in order,” explained Mukherjee, adding that his company does not run the delivery of the GCC. “We want you to run it because then you have ownership. It’s your team. End of the day, it’s just another location for you,” said Mukherjee.

While Gloplax’s processes might seem similar to its larger peers, its focus areas are different. Rather than putting its energy in the large Fortune companies, the company is looking to increase its presence amongst mid-market companies, those that do not fall within the Fortune bracket.

“We keep hearing about the big guys like JP Morgan, HSBC or Target, but they are actually a very small portion of the overall GCC population. The larger population (of GCCs) is actually mid-sized companies trying to make something out of it. Our entire programme, our platform designs and our product is towards that mid-segment,” said Mukherjee.

Bridgepath Innovations: The Counsel

Gloplax is not the only company to follow a unique structure. Its cross-town peer, Bridgepath Innovations, has a similar style of functioning.

“Today, it’s becoming a trend with companies to say that if nothing works, start a GCC. There are very few companies that provide independent consulting on whether large multinationals must even start GCCs. Companies don’t understand why they are building a GCC. We tell them this is what it is and what they actually need,” said Ramaswamy Narayanan, chief executive of Bridgepath Innovations.

Started in 2023 in Bengaluru, Bridgepath employs about 10 employees, most of whom are consultants on a contractual basis. Much like Gloplax, Bridgepath relies on its consulting service to run captive centres for a few and considers them as images of their parent companies.

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Bridgepath partners with firms specialising in real estate, legal services, and hiring, while focusing solely on consulting. “We charge 8-15% of the total cost of running the GCC from our clients,” said Narayanan, adding that his company has worked with three Fortune 500 companies in the last 15 years.

A growing market—and room for boutique players

India had 1,700 GCCs in FY24, up 32% from March 2019, which implies that a GCC is being set up in the country every third day.

These GCCs generated about $64.6 billion in revenue in FY24. The country’s IT industry was worth $269 billion the same year.

Further, the GCCs, in aggregate, employ 1.9 million people, said Piper Sandler analysts Arvind Ramnani, John Nutt, and Caden Dahl, in a note dated 23 March.

Unlike earlier, companies setting up GCCs in India today are smaller. “Earlier, mostly the Fortune 100 companies came to establish GCCs. Now in the last two to three years, a lot of mid-market companies have come to set-up GCCs. Any company, $300 million to $800 million in size, wants to start a GCC,” said Viswanathan K.S., chief mentor and board member of Stratinfinity, a Chennai-based consulting company.

The former Nasscom vice-president of industry initiatives added that digitisation is driving this change. “Now, it is easy to establish GCCs in less than five months. An abundance of digital-ready talent in India is driving these companies to set up shop here,” added Viswanathan.

Today, the largest GCCs in the country include JP Morgan, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs. These captives employ more than 10,000 employees each.

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More than 875, or half of the country’s 1,700 GCCs, are based in Bengaluru, while Hyderabad has about 355. The rest are located in cities such as Delhi NCR, Pune, and Chennai.

Nasscom estimates the number of Indian GCCs will touch 2,200 by March 2030, with a market size of $105 billion. While the GCC pie is set to get bigger, so is the scope for boutique firms sprouting up to open and run these GCCs.