Due to the increasing number of Global Capability Centres (GCCs) entering India and expanding their operations, it is expected that this expansion will result in offering a new channel of opportunities. Although the dynamic job market poses multiple challenges to the GCC expansion plan, the GCC leadership is exploring different ways to expand and solve problems at scale. Across industries, GCC organisations are delivering value to the head offices through various kinds of services such as product development, software development, helpdesk operations, cloud services, back-office operations and analytics to enhance insights for business functions.

While the above areas are present across the value chain of any industry, the requirements are generated from the following five key themes that have been observed across most organisations:

These business imperatives, as mentioned above, result in varied technology trends in the application technology space. We have seen GCC players deliver the growth and efficiency mandates through the following areas catered by application technology:

• Application portfolio rationalisation: Over the years, the application landscape has grown rapidly with a diverse set of technologies which increase operational complexity. Additionally, increase in M&A activities make it imperative to rationalise these applications and consolidate some under a single platform for ease of use.
• Application modernisation: Organisations globally are focusing on the migration of legacy applications or platforms such as cloud, microservices, micro-frontend etc. Since these applications are business critical and migration can be an expensive affair, migration planning and design, application migration, application development, API enablement etc., need to be carefully orchestrated without escalating costs.
  Re-platforming, re-hosting, recoding, rearchitecting, re-engineering, interoperability, replacement and retirement, and changes to the application architecture are usually evaluated by the organisations before undertaking any modernisation activity.
• Mobile app and digital asset development: Mobile is the new standard for business continuity, process and delivery. With more GCCs adopting mobile frameworks mobile app and digital asset development have revolutionised business. An organisation may choose from native or hybrid including low-code/no-code development platforms but will need constant rollouts of new features and functionalities in an agile manner, and update and maintain the old code simultaneously. 
• Digital experience platforms: The new way of doing business is digital and experience is the real differentiator in the digital space. All business channels like B2C, B2B, B2B2C, D2C and Q-commerce are now digital. GCCs are thus heavily investing in experience-driven omnichannel e-commerce, content development and content supply chain management. The competition in this space is tough with shorter innovation cycles driven by the ever-increasing customer expectations.
• Enterprise integration: Over a period, due to continuous addition and development of new IT systems, GCCs have encountered the imminent need to share essential information across systems, simplify processes and maximise opportunities. GCCs can improve their operational scalability and increase their reach and revenue by developing an enterprise-level integration framework. Therefore, all relevant steps such as defining the integration and automation strategy, defining reference architecture while considering the long-term strategic goals of the organisation and business process re-engineering need to be carefully considered and planned for a global organisation before deploying an integration framework.
• Business process automation (BPA): In a quest to reduce cost and increase efficiency, global organisations are aiming to automate repetitive critical as well as non-critical business processes. BPA usually involves streamlining operations through use cases like automated data entry, workflow management and document processing. 
• Service management: This area is evolving fast and enhances IT and enterprise service management through use cases like automated incident resolution, change management workflows and self-service portals. GCCs also leverage low-code capabilities to enable rapid customisation, while cloud deployment ensures scalability.
• Quality engineering (QE): This is of extreme importance, given that organisations are rapidly developing new products and standards used throughout different projects. Key services required by organisations are QE centre of excellence (CoE) setup and operating the same, functional testing, functional automation testing, API automation testing and mobile testing automation. In addition, performance and site reliability help customers to reach their zero-downtime goal, increase application speed, control infrastructure cost and reduce user attrition rate. We are also seeing increased focus on GenAI-driven automated use cases to perform different types of testing with efficiency.
• DevOps: Organisations usually need enterprise planning and agility to develop and deliver software at scale. To achieve enterprise-wide agility, we find the following technologies in play: 
  
  • secure software supply chain for application
  • database and model development (compliant with SLSA/FRSCA)
  • modernisation with containerisation (application and models)
  • infrastructure automation
  • cloud compliance and cost optimisation
  • feature engineering
• Digital operations: We have also seen GCCs driving digital operations operationally for multiple territories to enhance efficiency through use cases like automated supply chain management, smart factories, sensor-based automation across the value chain. Key technology trends include AI and machine learning for predictive insights and cloud computing for scalability. Internet of things (IoT) integration enables real-time monitoring of assets, while low-code platforms facilitate quick solution development.

While we have observed that these initiatives have become priorities for global organisations, they are also grappling with scaling up by ensuring quality of team, finding skilled talent, establishing governance mechanisms, navigating shift in workplace culture and post-COVID-19 workforce preferences, and adopting niche technologies to deliver outcomes. To navigate this, we recommend forming CoEs for skills that are used across initiatives and partnering with firms on specific new-age technologies before a large-scale adoption, in order to consolidate partnership strategy for better visibility and predictability from both sides, co-create solutions and ensure that the adoption strategy is incorporated across key initiatives, and invest in upskilling with partners to cater to larger needs with better efficiency.