Close on the heels of releasing a separate policy for Data Centre and FinTech, the Tamil Nadu government could come out with another novel initiative, a policy on Global Capability Centre (GCC) in a month or two.
“We are working on the policy and the draft is getting ready,” IT Minister Mano T Thangaraj told BusinessLine. “We want to give special focus to Global Capability Centres. We are analysing various aspects that are prevalent across the world and working on the right model. We will launch it in a month or two,” he said.
Major multinationals such as Standard Chartered, Ford, BNY Mellon, Verizon, AstraZeneca, Walmart, Caterpillar, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Wells Fargo, Paypal, World Bank, Citi and TransUnion have their GCCs in Chennai, said an industry expert.
‘Can double in five years’
Chennai has a 9 per cent market share in India in the GCC sector that generates revenue over $35 billion with over 1,430 centres with a workforce of 14 lakh. The sector has the potential to nearly double in the next five years, say industry reports.
India has moved from being just a cost arbitrage centre to skills and capability as the concept of GCC got rechristened in the last 25 years – from a pure ‘captive’ centre to Global Inhouse Centre to Global Innovation Centre and now GCC providing back-office functions; and critical IT support and remote IT infrastructure.
‘Keen on investments’
Nearly 50 per cent of the world’s GCCs are in India, and in locations such as Chennai, Bengaluru, NCR and Hyderabad.
“GCC is one area where we really want to get investments,” said IT Secretary Neeraj Mittal. Bengaluru tops the list. However, as it saturates, Chennai could be the next major GCC hub, he added.
Gaurav Gupta, Partner, Deloitte India, said a separate policy on GCC is a great step. Various States have got policies for IT/ITeS industry but now States are looking to have a focussed approach for GCCs.
While GCCs generated around $35 billion revenue in 2020, the economic value add of GCCs was almost $100 billion in terms of tax contribution, direct and indirect employment. GCCs have an all-round impact in driving innovation, ecosystem build-up and environment, social contribution. States that have a large number of GCCs have seen a rise in skilled talent, job opportunities and increased spending and ecosystem development, he said.
Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Krea University and former CMD, Cognizant India, said that a focused policy on GCCs would help accelerate economic value and drive significant employment generation in the State.
