In our research with 250 GCC leaders across India, 29% are already operating as true catalysts for enterprise-wide transformation and innovation.

We asked what they are doing differently. Three things stood out - and they map to the three areas which will be critical success factors for the next leap for GCCs: AI execution, talent, and ecosystem.

AI Execution

The GCC leaders driving real enterprise impact walk into headquarters with an agenda, not waiting to be given one. They are co-authoring enterprise AI strategy, not presenting to it. They shape new ways of working in HQ - they don't mirror the old ways of working. They introduce new ownership and partnership models, new technology approaches in India first, then headquarters adopts them. The flow of influence reversed - and that's the tell. They treat talent as a strategic asset, not a cost line, building leaders who are AI-fluent and business-fluent at the same time. That combination - technical depth plus business judgment - is what earns them the trust to own outcomes rather than just execute them.

The difference between a GCC that delivers and one that truly leads is not the technology stack. It's whether the GCC leadership team and talent walk into the room with an agenda or waits to be given one.

Talent and Skilling

Talent gaps rank as the number one barrier to innovation - cited by 74% of GCC leaders in our research, but the organizations closing that gap aren't doing it through hiring alone. Upskilling existing talent is the number one action GCCs are taking. The best ones go further than courses. They ask: what does this role look like when AI does half of it? Then they rebuild around what's left. They invest in the middle of the organization, not just the top - the people who decide day to day whether AI gets used or ignored. If that layer isn't fluent, nothing scales. Only 1 in 4 GCCs have reached full AI talent maturity. And they make their GCC the kind of place AI-fluent talent actually wants to work - with learning and development opportunities specific to GCC needs, not generic enterprise-wide ones. A place where they can grow their careers.

Stop counting how many people finished an AI course. Start counting how many decisions in your organization are being made differently because of AI. That's the only number that matters.

Ecosystem

2 in 3 GCCs in our research expect external partnerships to become core to their strategy within the next two years. 76% already rely on partners for key initiatives. The question has changed. It's no longer just "what do we build?" It's "what do we build, what do we buy, and what do we orchestrate?" GCCs now look to partners for GenAI expertise, niche skills, and co-innovation - not just talent augmentation. Hyperscalers for infrastructure, specialized AI platforms for targeted capability, talent networks for skills you can't hire fast enough. Most GCCs have one of those relationships. Very few have all three. This role has to be earned - by delivering outcomes the enterprise couldn't have gotten any other way, consistently, over time. The One GCC model of the future leverages best sourcing constructs to have distinctive capabilities performed by the company, agents orchestrating and performing work to achieve outcomes across functions, partners building and operating capabilities with leapfrog technologies that they either transfer back or operate ongoing, shared investment across the company, partners and ecosystem partners to continuously optimize and a flexible model that can be applied to suit the unique needs of each capability area. One GCC, best sourced, all under one roof.

The next leap isn't about adding more capabilities. It's about becoming the connective tissue of the enterprise - the entity that makes everything else work together.

Looking Ahead

For GCC leaders thinking about the next 12 months, three things stand out.

1. Deepen your fluency on data governance and AI IP - regulations are moving faster than operating models and your enterprise needs a thought leader who understands both the technology and the business context to help navigate it.
2. Build your ecosystem deliberately, not reactively - most GCCs have the hyperscaler relationship, very few have intentionally built the rest.
3. Solve for the skills you'll need 18 months from now: 67% of GCCs say they need to build or acquire digital and AI skills they don't currently have, and speed to market is now the number one performance metric ahead of cost savings - you cannot win on speed with yesterday's talent model.