Introduction

India has traditionally acted as the nervous system for the world’s enterprise services, spanning from back-office IT processing to shared services. For a long time considered as cost centres, enterprise services in India were designed for efficiency, scale and standardization. As the pace of digital disruption and the spread of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is witnessing phenomenal growth, there is a fundamental shift undergoing within these services.

Support functions are being strategically leveraged to provide business agility, value, and differentiated competition. In the context of my enterprise services perspective, I would like to demonstrate how services in India are being reinvented from reactive transactional facilitators to proactive drivers of insight, innovation and impact.

The Context - India at the Epicenter of Global Enterprise Services

With over 1,600 Global Capability Centers (GCCs) catering to in excess of 1,000 global businesses, India is strategically positioned. Evolving digital enhancements along with an untapped sophisticated talent pool coupled with established frameworks for excellence in processes makes India appealing for enterprise business operations.

In recent years, Indian enterprises and GCCs have rapidly evolved to deliver complex services. They now handle complex tasks such as finance transformation, procurement analysis, HR technology, supply chain insights, and customer experience. But the post-pandemic world demands even more. Focus on quick, resilient, and digital-first operations has set higher standards.

What’s driving change and why it matters Three main forces are challenging traditional enterprise services in India:

1. AI and Intelligent Automation: With GenAI, predictive tools, and automation, many manual and rules-based tasks are now automated. AI helps with decisions in real time, autonomous workflows, and adaptable processes.
2. Business Expectations: Top leaders no longer see services as just a way to cut costs. Now, these services need to boost revenue, speed up product launches, and improve stakeholder satisfaction.
3. Digital-First Enterprises: Businesses are becoming digital at their core. This pushes enterprise services to support fast-changing models, real-time data, and customer-focused innovation across all functions. These changes are shifting enterprise services from support functions to key parts of strategic actions.

From Cost Centers to Sources of Value Top Indian firms are reshaping enterprise services around three main goals:

• Strategic Alignment: Aligning with business results like better cash flow, higher employee engagement, and improved customer scores.
• Technology Integration: Using technology like AI, robotic process automation, data lakes, and platforms such as ServiceNow, SAP S/4HANA, and Workday within processes.
• Value Realization: Focusing on impact measures such as cycle times, return on investment, and risk reduction instead of just effort metrics like staff reductions. This shift requires a change in mindset - moving from just delivering work to designing solutions, from efficiency to effectiveness, and from just outputs to real results.

AI as a Driver of Better Enterprise Insights AI’s role in Indian enterprise services is growing quickly and affecting many areas:

• Finance & Accounting: GenAI tools now write analysis reports, forecast cash flows, and automate reconciliations.
• Procurement: AI helps predict sourcing needs, identify supplier risks, and analyze contracts.
• HR: Virtual agents improve employee support, while AI platforms build skills templates and personalize learning.
• Customer Experience: Bots and language models increase the accuracy of responses, enable self-service, and gauge customer sentiment. In all these cases, AI is shifting focus from simple tasks to providing insights that guide decisions.

India’s Unique Edge in AI Changes India has clear advantages in transforming enterprise services:

• Tech Talent Density: India has one of the biggest groups of AI, data science, and cloud professionals.
• Digital-Ready GCCs: Many centers in India lead global projects in AI for enterprises.
• Government & Policy Push: Initiatives like IndiaAI and Digital India push AI adoption across sectors. These strengths make India a major player not just in delivering services, but also in designing and creating new solutions.

Challenges Along the Way Despite progress, Indian enterprise service leaders face hurdles:

• Change Management: Moving teams from routine tasks to analysis needs new skills and cultural shifts.
• Data Readiness: Poor data quality and disconnected systems limit AI’s usefulness.
• Value Measurement: Many firms struggle to track the real benefits AI services bring. Overcoming these requires strong leadership, clear goals, and ongoing learning.

Addressing these gaps requires strong governance, outcome-linked KPIs, and continuous learning ecosystems.

The Way Forward - Five Imperatives for Indian Leaders

1. Embed Design Thinking: Start with the user experience and work backward to reimagine processes.
2. Build AI Confidence: Upskill teams, run controlled pilots, and create AI playbooks to scale responsibly.
3. Orchestrate Platform Thinking: Integrate enterprise platforms with low-code tools, APIs, and data fabric.
4. Rewire Governance: Shift from SLA-based governance to value-based governance.
5. Champion Value Stories: Showcase outcomes to build sponsorship, inspire teams, and drive enterprise-wide buy-in.

Case Study: A Global FMCG Giant Transforms F&A Through AI-led Automation

Context:
The India GCC of a Fortune 100 FMCG company embarked on a finance transformation initiative to shift from traditional shared services to a value-centric digital finance model.

Initiative Highlights:

• Implemented AI-driven intelligent document processing (IDP) for invoice processing and reconciliation.
• Embedded GenAI-based narrative engines within Power BI for automated commentary on variances and financial trends.
• Shifted 60% of the record-to-report (R2R) workflows to autonomous operations using bots and predictive analytics.

Results Achieved (Within 12 Months):

• 92% straight-through processing (STP) of invoices (up from 48% YoY)
• Monthly close cycle reduced from 6.5 days to 3.8 days
• $3.2 million in cost savings, primarily from reduced manual intervention and improved working capital insights
• 15% improvement in forecast accuracy for cash flow and operating margin

Strategic Impact:
Finance shifted from being a back-end processor to a business advisor, providing near real-time decision support to CFOs across regions.

Conclusion

The reinvention of enterprise services is not a tech project - it’s a strategic imperative. For India, this is a moment of opportunity to lead the global transformation of enterprise operations.

By embracing AI, rethinking value, and retooling talent, India’s enterprise service leaders can move beyond efficiency and become architects of enterprise agility, resilience, and innovation.

The future of enterprise services is being written now. And India is holding the pen.

Disclaimer: "The views expressed in this article are mine and my employer or SSF Global does not subscribe to the substance or veracity of my views."