GCC talent pool in smaller hubs up 26% in 2 years

Indian GCCs are expanding their footprint into emerging cities, including Ahmedabad, Pune, Vadodara, Mangaluru, Coimbatore, and Chandigarh. Consulting firm Zinnov’s data shows the GCC talent pool in these cities has grown 26% to 71,000 in 2023-24, from 56,000 in 2020-21. Karthik Padmanabhan, managing partner at Zinnov, says the number of GCC units in emerging cities also rose by about 27% between these years.

“Historically, Bengaluru and NCR have been the dominant players in the GCC space. However, the focus is now shifting towards these emerging hubs, propelled by a combination of factors such as the availability of skilled professionals, lower operating costs, and work-life balance,” he says.

IT services firms including Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Cognizant, and Accenture have built and strengthened the local talent and ecosystems in these locations. GCCs are now benefiting from that, but also contributing to further strengthening it. “We believe GCCs will test these locations by setting up satellite centres before developing them into major hubs. The presence of GCCs and leading IT firms will attract more talent and companies, creating a virtuous cycle of growth and innovation. This steady expansion promises a more balanced and dynamic distribution of tech opportunities across India,” Karthik says.

Pune and Coimbatore top the list among emerging locations, housing GCCs of several Fortune 500 companies. Coimbatore has an estimated talent pool of over 15,000.

Ravichandran Durairajan, head of the IT centre at oilfield services company Schlumberger, says that in 2016, Schlumberger acquired Cameron, a company that supplies flow equipment products, systems, and services to the global oil and gas industries. Cameron had an engineering centre based in Coimbatore. Schlumberger had its IT centre in Pune al- ready. Post-acquisition of Cameron, Schlumberger decided to establish a new IT centre in Coimbatore that would represent every function within the organisation.

“Having only a centre in Pune exposes us to concentration risk. The Coimbatore centre helps mitigate this and manage business continuity. It also helps attract the south Indian talent pool,” Ravichandran says. Today, in addition to the IT centre, Schlumberger also has an engineering design and R&D centre in Coimbatore.

Karthik says many governments encourage the decongestion of metropolitan areas by offering tax breaks, subsidies, and other incentives to companies willing to relocate to smaller cities. People costs are 25-30% lower than in metros. Facilities costs are around 10% lower. Travel expenses tend to be high due to less direct connectivity out of these cities. However, these add less than 5% to costs, Karthik says.

Most of these locations have good educational institutions. The local talent pool is less transient than in larger cities, reducing turnover and recruitment costs. “The co-location of good engineering colleges is key, as that acts as the main talent feeder,” Karthik says.

Ravichandran says they have strong relationships with campuses in Tamil Nadu, including Anna University, Guindy campus, VIT, NIT Trichy, and Amrita University.