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For years, the choice was simple: build a GCC, or outsource to TCS, Accenture, Infosys, HCLTech, Cognizant.
That line is blurring.
TCS’s reported takeover of Best Buy’s India GCC is the clearest signal, but it’s not the only one. TCS also acquired Porsche’s German IT arm MHP (with its India centre) for $373M, in exchange for a 5-year, $1.45B deal. Wipro bought Olam’s captive Mindsprint for $320M as part of a $1B contract. HCLTech picked up Guardian Life’s India IT unit outright.
Different clients, same shape: an established, working captive absorbed into a services firm, wrapped in a long-term transformation deal.
And that’s the part worth pausing on. These weren’t distressed assets being offloaded. They were functioning GCCs; proven, running fine, and that got acquired anyway. Existing, working GCCs are being gobbled up, not just struggling ones.
Why would a company hand over a GCC that works?
Because building a centre is easy; building a genuinely strategic one, with real talent, leadership, AI capability, and global credibility, is hard. Many 500-person GCCs quietly become expensive offshore back-offices instead. Eventually: “Do we need to own and operate all of this ourselves?”
And services firms have their own reasons. Their old equation- more people, more revenue is breaking under AI. Meanwhile, GCCs are pulling strategic work and talent away. So the move isn’t to fight GCCs. It’s to join them.
Build → Operate → Transform → Scale → Transfer.
That’s not outsourcing 2.0. The provider inherits a mature team, domain knowledge, and proprietary process; not just a contract.
Three models are emerging:
- 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗚𝗖𝗖: owned outright. IP, R&D, core platforms. Not up for negotiation.
- 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝗚𝗖𝗖: enterprise keeps control, partner runs parts of it. Increasingly, even the parts that already work.
- 𝗚𝗖𝗖-𝗮𝘀-𝗮-𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲: a partner designs, builds, hires, operates and scales a centre from scratch, with the option to transfer it back later.
- 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘆: GCCs once threatened IT services jobs, and every captive role(s) was the one TCS or Accenture didn’t get. Now the same GCC boom is their next growth market: builders, operators, transformation partners, and increasingly, takeover partners.
So the real contest isn’t GCC vs IT services. It’s GCC + IT services + AI.
Which leaves CEOs with a sharper question:
Who should own the capability and who should operate it?
Ownership and control aren’t the same thing anymore. The GCC story isn’t ending. It’s evolving, from captive vs outsourced, to owned vs operated vs orchestrated.
