How to Set Up a GCC in India: A Step-by-Step Guide

A practical roadmap for entity structure, location, compliance and hiring to setup your capability centre in India

A few years ago, a “GCC in India” usually meant a back office — a place that processed invoices, ran payroll and kept the IT helpdesk staffed while the real decisions happened elsewhere. That's not the story anymore.

Today, Global Capability Centres in India build products, own AI roadmaps, run cybersecurity operations for their entire global group, and increasingly report straight to a CXO rather than a regional manager. The scale backs this up: India is now home to more than 2,100 GCCs employing over 2.36 million professionals. Dig into the industry data and the picture gets even sharper. The Zinnov–Nasscom India GCC Landscape 2026 report counts 2,117 parent companies running 3,728 individual GCC units, generating $98.4 billion in revenue, up 32% since FY 2021 alone.

If you're a company weighing whether — and how — to set up a GCC in India, the opportunity isn't really in question anymore. What takes real planning is everything that has to be right before you hire your first employee: the operating model, the legal entity, the city, the compliance framework and the people plan. This guide walks through all of it.

What Is a GCC?

A Global Capability Centre (GCC) is an in-house centre a company sets up to deliver services, expertise or capabilities for its parent organisation or wider group — essentially an extension of the business, built and owned in India rather than outsourced to a vendor.

A GCC's remit can span finance, HR, procurement, software engineering, analytics, research, cybersecurity or product development. The more mature ones go further, taking ownership of entire global processes, technology platforms and R&D programmes.

You'll also come across “captive centre,” “Global In-House Centre (GIC)” and “shared services centre” — these overlap heavily with GCC, though usage isn't always consistent. In India, “captive centre” is still common market shorthand, but “GCC” has become the preferred umbrella term as these centres have expanded well beyond routine support work into technology, engineering and specialised domains.

Why Companies Are Betting on India

Talent is still India's biggest draw — deep pools of engineers, finance professionals and domain specialists at a scale few countries can match. But the nature of the work itself has shifted just as much. GCCs today aren't limited to processing transactions; many now own analytics platforms, build AI products and run global cybersecurity functions.

A few numbers make the shift concrete:

• India's GCC workforce grew from 1.9 million to 2.36 million in just two years, and GCC-booked revenue nearly doubled — from $64.6 billion in FY2024 to $98.4 billion in FY2026.
• India is now the world's #1 AI hiring market, and 506 of the Forbes Global 2000 already run a GCC here.
• GCCs are expected to add 4.25–4.5 lakh new jobs in India in 2025 alone, and 61% of GCCs plan to grow female hiring by more than 50% by 2030 — up sharply from just 7% projecting similar growth for 2025.
• GCCs aren't just hiring — they're building. In 2025, they leased around 31 million square feet of office space in India, their highest annual take-up ever, accounting for close to 40% of all office leasing in the country that year.

Location still matters. Established hubs — Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Mumbai and the National Capital Region — account for the bulk of GCC stock (Bengaluru alone holds roughly 42%, followed by Hyderabad at 16% and Delhi-NCR at 13%), but the right choice for any one company depends on the talent it needs, salary levels, office costs, infrastructure and how fast it expects to scale.

Step-by-Step: How to Set Up a GCC in India

1. Define the Operating Model

Start with the work you want the centre to own, not the org chart. Some companies build and run the GCC entirely themselves. Others use a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model, where a partner sets the centre up before handing it over to the parent company. A hybrid works well when some functions need direct control while others benefit from external support early on. Think through expected headcount, functions, investment and how much control you want before locking in a model.

2. Choose the Entity Structure

Your legal structure has to match what you're actually planning to do in India. A foreign investor can set up an Indian company — a wholly owned subsidiary or a joint venture — subject to applicable FDI rules and sector conditions, or establish a branch, liaison or project office under the FEMA framework, subject to permitted activities (these options are laid out in the DPIIT Foreign Investor FAQ). The structure you choose affects taxation, governance, reporting, transfer pricing, and how the Indian centre relates to its overseas parent — so it's worth getting expert input before filing anything.

3. Select the Location

Rent is the easiest number to compare across cities, and the easiest one to get wrong. Bengaluru remains the dominant technology and engineering hub; Hyderabad has built real depth in technology and enterprise functions; Pune is strong in engineering; Chennai combines technology with industrial and engineering capability; Gurugram and the wider NCR give access to technology, finance, consulting and corporate talent; and Mumbai leads for financial services and specialist roles. Start with the roles you actually need to fill — a city that looks cheaper on paper can turn expensive fast if your critical hires take six extra months to find.

4. Set Up Regulatory and Compliance Requirements

Once you've picked the entity and the city, map every registration and ongoing obligation before your first employee joins — company law, tax registration, payroll, employment compliance, FEMA, transfer pricing and any sector-specific requirements that apply. Pay particular attention to cross-border arrangements: the relationship between the Indian centre and its overseas parent shapes intercompany agreements, service charges, invoicing and transfer pricing, and it's far easier to build this in from day one than to untangle it once the centre is operating.

5. Build the Talent Plan

Hire your leadership early — a GCC head, country head or functional lead sets the hiring bar, builds reporting lines and shapes the organisation before the wider team arrives. Not every role is a volume hire, either: specialist positions in AI, product engineering, cybersecurity and senior technology functions typically take longer to fill, and that lead time is worth planning for. Clear job descriptions, competitive pay and real career paths make a measurable difference to how fast — and how well — you hire.

6. Set Up Real Estate and Infrastructure

Let the office follow the operating model, not the other way round. Estimate your first-phase headcount, work arrangements, security requirements and likely growth before signing a lease — GCCs collectively leased around 31 million square feet in India in 2025 alone, so you won't be the only one competing for good space in the hub cities. Technology needs the same planning: secure networks, identity management, employee devices, cloud infrastructure, data controls and business continuity systems all need to be in place — especially for centres handling customer data, source code, financial information or IP — before anyone logs in for the first time.

7. Build a Realistic Timeline

There's no single “GCC setup timeline” that fits every business. A small centre with a simple structure moves faster than a large operation that needs substantial hiring, a dedicated office and specialist technology. The core workstreams — entity formation, regulatory registrations, location selection, leadership hiring, recruitment, infrastructure and operational readiness — can run partly in parallel, but the overall plan still needs to leave room for registration timelines, hiring lead times, office fit-out and technology readiness.

What Does It Cost to Set Up a GCC in India?

There's no single dependable figure for GCC setup cost — headcount, city, function mix, technology needs and operating model can all move the number significantly. The main cost heads to plan for:

• Entity formation and professional fees
• Office lease, fit-out and facilities
• Technology and security infrastructure
• Recruitment and employee costs
• Legal, tax and compliance work
• HR, payroll and administration

For most GCCs, employee costs become the largest recurring expense over time, while office and technology tend to create the biggest upfront outlay. A two-to-three-year financial model — not a generic cost-per-employee number — gives a far more useful picture of what the centre will actually cost to run.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

How AKM Global Can Help

Setting up a GCC means making several interconnected decisions at once — entity structure, tax and transfer pricing, FEMA and RBI compliance, payroll, real estate, technology and day-to-day operations — and getting any one of them wrong can be expensive to fix later.

AKM Global has spent more than 45 years advising companies entering and operating in India, and today, works with a team of 900+ professionals across Gurgaon (our headquarters), Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and the UAE — the same cities that host the bulk of India's GCC activity. The majority of our clients are multinational businesses navigating exactly this kind of cross-border setup.

For a company building a GCC in India, that means one team that can coordinate entity incorporation, FEMA and RBI compliance, tax and transfer pricing structuring, payroll and employment law, and ongoing statutory compliance — instead of stitching together separate legal, tax and HR advisors and hoping the pieces fit. It's particularly useful if this is your first time setting up in India, or if you're building a specialised centre where local hiring and compliance knowledge genuinely matters.

India's GCC ecosystem has reached a scale where companies can build far more than support teams — government data puts the country's GCC base at more than 2,100 centres employing over 2.36 million professionals, and industry estimates put the market on track for $100–110 billion in revenue by 2030.

But a successful setup starts well before recruitment. The operating model, entity structure, location, compliance framework, technology and hiring plan all need to fit together from day one. Speed matters, but a fast launch isn't worth much if you have to rebuild the structure six months in.

Planning a GCC setup in India? Speak with AKM Global's GCC advisory team about your proposed structure, location and setup plan — get in touch with us at www.akmglobal.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between a GCC and a BPO vendor?

A GCC is owned by the parent company itself. A BPO vendor is a third party working under contract.

How long does it take to set up a GCC in India?

It varies, but a simple centre can go live in a few months. Larger, multi-function GCCs take longer, mainly due to leadership hiring and office setup.

Can a foreign company wholly own its GCC in India?

Yes, in most sectors — as a wholly owned Indian subsidiary, subject to FDI rules and sector conditions.

Which city is best for a GCC in India?

It depends on the talent you need. Bengaluru and Hyderabad lead in tech, Mumbai in financial services, and NCR offers a broad mix of functions.

Is transfer pricing documentation mandatory for a GCC?

Yes, if it transacts with its overseas parent — which almost all GCCs do. These transactions must be priced and documented at arm's length.