How Are Global Companies Setting Up GCCs in India?

A practical guide for global enterprises planning their India capability centre in 2026.

India hosts over 1,760 GCCs employing nearly 1.9 million professionals. In 2025, GCCs accounted for 38 percent of office leasing across India’s top seven cities. Setup takes three to six months under a managed model, nine to eighteen months under a conventional build. The key decisions are city selection, operating model, and workspace strategy. This piece covers all three.

This piece is for global heads of real estate, strategy leads, and CFOs at multinationals evaluating India as a GCC destination. The decisions made in the first 90 days determine the cost, timeline, and quality of India operations for the next five years.

India is not a cost-arbitrage play anymore. GCCs in India have evolved from back-office cost centres to genuine innovation engines driving digital transformation, R&D, and global leadership mandates. By 2030, India is expected to host over 2,500 GCCs employing 2.8 to 2.9 million professionals and contributing USD 105 billion to the global economy. The enterprises building in India now are positioning for that outcome.

Why Are Global Companies Choosing India for GCC Setup?

Talent depth, cost advantage, and city-level specialisation no other market matches.

India offers a 60 to 70 percent cost advantage compared to US and EU markets. The GCC ecosystem is set to grow into a USD 100 billion-plus market by 2030. GCCs are expected to account for roughly 40 percent of India’s total Grade A office space demand in 2025 to 2026, making them the single largest commercial real estate occupier segment in the country.

State governments are accelerating entry. Karnataka, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu have introduced targeted GCC policies offering plug-and-play infrastructure, tax incentives, and streamlined approvals. Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh have launched single-window clearance systems.

The enterprises that have moved quickly illustrate what is possible when workspace infrastructure is in place from day one. BMW Techworks India scaled its Pune GCC from 100 seats to 700 in approximately 120 days, with a roadmap to 2,000 seats within 12 months, by using managed office infrastructure rather than building from scratch. L’Oreal established its first global beauty-tech GCC in Hyderabad, beginning with a 200-seat incubation space with plans to scale to 2,000 people. American Express set up a 12-month incubation centre in Chennai, designed and delivered in 90 to 120 days, purpose-built to support their transition to a long-term facility. In each case, the workspace decision was a strategic one made early, not a logistics problem solved after the fact.

India’s combination of talent scale, cost efficiency, and government support makes it the default GCC destination. The workspace decision determines how fast that advantage is captured.

Which Cities Should You Consider for Your GCC?

Match the city to the function, not just the cost.

City selection is a talent and function decision before it is a real estate decision. Each major Indian market has a distinct specialisation profile.

• Bengaluru leads with over 487 GCC centres, representing 33 to 40 percent of India’s total GCC ecosystem. The default destination for engineering, AI, and product mandates. Flexible office stock runs 30 to 32 million square feet with 12 to 14 percent penetration. Google, Meta, Maersk, McKesson, and Ericsson all run India managed workspaces here.
• Hyderabad has 273-plus centres with real estate running 20 to 30 percent cheaper than Bengaluru. Strong for BFSI, analytics, pharma, and AI. Microsoft’s 1,250-seat managed workspace here, delivered in 150 days to global design and compliance standards, illustrates the city’s capacity for large-scale enterprise mandates.
• Pune has 178 centres and the highest flex penetration nationally at 14 to 16 percent. A strong hub for R&D and engineering GCCs. BMW Techworks India’s rapid capacity expansion here demonstrates the city’s ability to accommodate fast-scaling operations when the right workspace infrastructure is in place.
• Chennai serves automotive, R&D, and software GCCs with strong workforce depth.
• NCR serves financial services, consulting, and back-office functions with proximity to regulatory bodies.

Tier-2 cities including Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Kochi are gaining ground for cost-sensitive or talent-diversification strategies.

Engineering goes to Bengaluru. BFSI analytics goes to Hyderabad. R&D goes to Pune or Chennai. The city choice follows the function.

What Are the GCC Setup Models?

Three models, each with a different risk, capital, and timeline profile.

The build model involves the company setting up and operating the GCC independently. Full control, highest upfront investment, longest timeline. Suited to organisations with existing India operations and internal real estate capability already in place.

The managed model has a third-party operator managing setup, infrastructure, and day-to-day operations under a managed office arrangement. Lower capital exposure, faster go-live, single point of accountability. Under this model, a fully functional GCC is operational in three to six months. The capital that would otherwise sit in deposits and fit-out deploys toward talent and operations instead.

The hybrid model, or build-operate-transfer, has the operator standing up the GCC, running it for an agreed period, then transferring control to the enterprise. Reduces setup risk while preserving the option for full ownership later.

Most first-time GCC entrants choose the managed or hybrid model. The Cushman and Wakefield research co-published with Table Space (2024) identified this as the primary driver: enterprises want a single, accountable partner for the full real estate lifecycle. The managed model does not reduce control. It transfers operational complexity to a provider built to handle it.

The managed model compresses the timeline from eighteen months to under six, and deploys capital toward talent rather than real estate.

What Is the Right Workspace Strategy for a GCC?

A workspace built to the GCC’s brief, compliance standard, and brand, not to a generic floor plan.

GCCs now occupy more than one-third of all Grade A office space in India. The workspace signals organisational intent to candidates, clients, and regulators. Senior engineering talent in Bengaluru or Hyderabad evaluates the office as a signal of how seriously the organisation is investing in India. A GCC built to global design and compliance standards in a Grade A building sends a different message than a generic shared environment.

For GCCs above 50 people establishing a permanent city presence, a managed office is the operationally appropriate choice. It delivers a branded, compliant, technology-enabled environment in approximately 90 days, without requiring the enterprise to build an internal real estate function. For smaller teams or secondary city deployments, flexible office space or coworking provides the speed and cost efficiency the managed model cannot match at that scale.

Table Space operates as a managed office provider for over 125 GCC clients across Bengaluru, NCR, Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Chennai. With over 450 enterprise clients, approximately 45 percent repeat business, and clients including BMW Techworks India, L’Oreal, Rapid7, American Express, and Microsoft, the record is one of consistent delivery across sectors, cities, and scale points. Each workspace is built to the client’s global standard, not to a shared template. Over 90 percent of revenue comes from Fortune 50 and Fortune 500 companies, a figure that reflects both the scale of the client base and the standard they hold their workspace partner to.

Match the workspace model to the team size, compliance profile, and tenure. The per-seat headline is the wrong number to lead with.

Planning your GCC setup in India? Talk to the Table Space team.