Maximizing Cost Efficiency: Building GCCs Without Sacrificing Quality

One of the most compelling reasons to establish a GCC is the potential for significant cost savings—not just in terms of labor arbitrage, but through overall operational efficiency and long-term value creation. 

By leveraging India’s deep talent pool through a purpose-built GCC, enterprises can achieve meaningful cost reductions without sacrificing quality or continuity. SMC Squared’s people-first approach empowers organizations to access high-caliber, enterprise-aligned teams that contribute to core technology functions—from development and QA to generative AI and digital product delivery.

Unlike traditional third-party vendor models, a GCC enables:

• Predictable Cost Structures: Unlike traditional outsourcing, GCCs operate with a stable team structure, thereby eliminating the fluctuating costs of hourly billing models.
• Strategic Workforce Planning: SMC’s proprietary people-first method ensures talent is recruited, developed, and retained based on alignment with your company’s culture and goals.
• Efficiency Through Retention: High retention rates reduce the hidden costs of constant re-hiring and onboarding.

Moving Beyond Vendors: Achieving Strategic Value and Control with GCCs

The legacy approach of offshoring via hourly-billed vendors often leads to inflated costs and diluted accountability. Without dedicated team investment or strategic ownership, companies may struggle to drive meaningful innovation or performance.

SMC Squared’s flexible GCC models eliminate these challenges:

• Dedicated Teams, Not Temporary Vendors: Employees are fully embedded into an organization and focused on outcomes, not billable hours.
• Expertise Without Compromise: SMC’s talent solutions provide access to hard-to-find skills at a sustainable cost, enabling greater budget flexibility.
• Faster Ramp-up Times: Teams are recruited with specific goals in mind, reducing time to productivity.

Accelerating Innovation: How GCCs Power Digital and AI Transformation

Modern GCCs are no longer limited to IT support or service desk functions or basic business services in finance and accounting or human resources. Today, global companies are repositioning their GCCs as innovation hubs, empowering them to drive digital transformation, shape strategy, and advance technology integration at scale. 

This evolution of GCCs is driven by several key factors:

• Unmatched Technical Talent in India: India’s workforce offers world-class capabilities across data science, engineering, AI, automation, and enterprise systems—talent that’s not only accessible but also specialized.
• Rising Demand for Digital Transformation: As organizations race to adopt generative AI, intelligent automation, and cloud-native architectures, they need dedicated teams that can experiment, scale quickly, and move beyond legacy constraints.
• Increased Strategic Ownership: Unlike vendor models that deliver output with minimal context, GCCs empower companies to build embedded teams that understand and align with broader business objectives—critical for innovation-led initiatives.
• Faster Time to Value: A dedicated GCC can rapidly build proof-of-concepts, deploy pilots, and iterate in real time, removing the friction often experienced with distributed vendor ecosystems.

With SMC, enterprises can harness these opportunities by designing GCCs that are built for innovation from day one. Our flexible GCC models bring together the right people, processes, and leadership structures to support advanced transformation initiatives. SMC-enabled GCCs have delivered tangible business outcomes—from deploying AI chatbots and personalized content pipelines to building AI-driven analytics assistants and search innovations. These initiatives not only reduce operational costs and improve customer engagement but also unlock new pathways for enterprise growth.

Future-proofing Your GCC: Unlocking the Benefits of GCC 2.0

GCCs have become essential for enterprises seeking to drive innovation, efficiency, and strategic value on a global scale. As technology and business needs evolve, so too does the GCC model—moving from traditional talent hubs to intelligent, AI-powered engines of transformation.

GCC 1.0 focused on building teams at scale, optimizing costs, and supporting digital transformation through skilled talent and strong cultural alignment. While this model delivered operational excellence and innovation, it was primarily centered on human capability and process efficiency.

GCC 2.0 represents a significant leap forward. The combination of SMC Squared’s proven expertise in building and optimizing GCCs with Hexaware’s advanced AI-driven platforms creates a powerful foundation for GCC 2.0. The benefits GCC 2.0 delivers include:

• Dramatically faster turnaround times, with applications delivered up to twice as quickly as before.
• Significant productivity gains, with output increased by up to 40% compared to traditional GCC models.
• Enhanced innovation capacity, as AI-powered tools free up talent to focus on high-value, creative problem-solving.
• Greater scalability and agility, enabling organizations to respond rapidly to market changes and new opportunities.
• A future-proofed workforce, where digitally enabled teams are continuously learning, adapting, and thriving.

Is Your Organization Ready? The GCC Readiness Checklist

As more multinational companies shift to global capability center models, the question isn’t if you’re ready but how ready you are.

SMC has developed a practical GCC readiness checklist for global technology leaders to assess four essential areas as you prepare to launch your company’s GCC.

1. Strategic Alignment and Timing: Does the GCC model fit your organization’s long-term vision and current operational priorities?
2. Talent and Technology Needs: Do you have the right mix of skills, digital infrastructure, and talent pipelines to support a GCC build?
3. Organizational Readiness for Scale: Can your leadership and governance structures support a global delivery center?
4. Risk Awareness and Mitigation: Are you prepared to manage IP protection, vendor consolidation, business continuity, and regulatory and compliance concerns?

Global capability centers are no longer optional—they are strategic imperatives for companies looking to stay ahead. As the demand for digital transformation, innovation, and global agility grows, the GCC model offers a powerful solution. If you answered yes to any of the questions above, it may be time to explore what a purpose-driven, custom-built GCC can do for you.

Papa Johns and SMC Squared: A Journey from Operational Efficiency to Innovation

Papa Johns, a global pizza brand, faced persistent challenges sourcing and retaining the right technical talent for critical corporate systems roles, despite partnering with multiple staffing vendors in the US. This fragmented approach resulted in inconsistent performance, high contractor costs, and concerns around data and IP security.

Recognizing the need for a more strategic, long-term solution, Papa Johns partnered with SMC Squared to build a dedicated global capability center (GCC) in Bengaluru. The goal was clear: enhance efficiency, gain full visibility into team performance, and reduce reliance on costly third-party vendors.

SMC Squared’s people-first, recruit-to-fit methodology proved to be a game changer. SMC Squared enabled Papa Johns to stabilize costs while strengthening data security and intellectual property protection by assembling a team handpicked for their technical expertise and cultural alignment. Within the first nine months, the GCC team grew to 24 members, achieving an impressive 99% retention rate, exceeding industry norms. This high level of engagement and continuity transformed the GCC into a true extension of Papa Johns’ core business, fostering greater ownership, accountability, and strategic alignment.

As Papa Johns expanded its vision for the GCC, the focus shifted from efficiency to innovation. The Bengaluru center now leads advanced data analytics initiatives, leveraging AI to enhance business strategy, deepen customer insights, and optimize performance metrics. The team has also developed and implemented in-store automation processes, which are now rolling out across US distribution centers—a complex project managed entirely from India. This evolution highlights how the GCC, enabled by SMC Squared, has become a vital hub for enterprise-wide transformation and future-ready growth.