Global Capability Centres (GCCs) may be capturing the mind share of the business world but only 8 per cent of GCCs globally can be considered truly mature and ‘top performers’ when it comes to three parameters- innovation, competitive differentiation, and operational efficiency.
A new report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) finds that GCCs are evolving rapidly in scope and ambition but the majority remain focused on delivery execution, underutilizing their potential to act as capability hubs powering enterprise-wide transformation.
Globally, 19 per cent of the 150 GCCs surveyed were found to be ‘above average performers’ in the criteria evaluated. 65 per cent are ‘Average performers’ and 8 per cent ‘Under performers’, BCG’s report notes.
The 8 per cent metric of top performer GCCs holds true in India too despite its growing volume of GCCs. In contrast, Mexico, which is emerging as a strong GCC market globally owing to its tech talent and proximity to the US, hold 11 per cent top performing GCCs.
Sreyssha George, Managing Director and Partner at BCG says that the involvement of AI has brought a fresh momentum to GCC ecosystem helping them to lead transformation, not just support it. “Over 90 per cent of the GCCs that emerged as top performers have set up or expanded AI-led Centers of Excellence in the past 18 months, a trend consistent across industries and geographies,” she said.
A sectoral analysis of the maturity levels of GCCs shows that technology, media, telecom (TMT) firms lead in maturity, driven by higher investment in AI initiatives and depth of innovation.
BFSI, a sector that has the highest share of GCC employees, scores lower on the innovation parameter and overall maturity levels. The legacy of the BFSI sector pulls it down when it comes to implementing innovation compared to retail or CPG sector that are digitally native, George said.
When it comes to advanced AI use cases such as GenAI, NLP and AI agents, top performers have moved beyond pilots to embed AI across core workflows, but majority GCCs remain trapped in early-stage experimentation.
“90 per cent+ top performing GCCs implement advanced AI use cases vs ~50% of others. The risk for others is falling into an auto-pilot mode,” Rajiv Gupta, Managing Director and Senior Partner at BCG.
150 CXOs and GCC leaders across industries and geographies participated in the BCG survey titled “Rewriting the Global Capability Center Playbook: Scaling Maturity with AI.”
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Published on June 4, 2025
