Malahar Pinnelli  

India’s role in global retail GCCs has long been framed in terms of operational scale and execution capability. While that narrative explained the early phase of growth, it no longer captures India’s strategic relevance today. The real inflexion point is this: India-based GCCs are now accountable for end-to-end platform outcomes, moving decisively beyond delivery execution to enterprise-level ownership.

The era of fragmented ownership is now behind us. To remain relevant, GCC leaders must actively audit their portfolios, shed execution-only responsibilities, and consolidate around core platforms where India-based teams can take clear P&L accountability. This shift requires strong product leadership with deep retail domain expertise, empowering teams to make architectural and commercial trade-offs and to measure success through business metrics such as margin impact, inventory velocity, and customer experience. Execution succeeds only when decision rights, accountability, and incentives are aligned with platform outcomes rather than functional output.

However, ownership at this level demands a different operating model. GCC leaders must move beyond throughput metrics and align success outcomes with platform adoption, inventory velocity, cycle-time reduction, system stability during peak demand, and innovation speed. Without this shift, ownership remains fragmented, and decision-making remains elsewhere.

AI will define the next phase of retail GCCs only when it is embedded within fully end-to-end platforms owned by India-based teams. In leading centres, AI is designed into core platforms to drive predictive decisions, automate operational complexity, and improve responsiveness across supply chains and customer touchpoints.  Teams own the platform lifecycle from roadmap and architecture to resilience, cost, and business impact. Therefore, AI becomes scalable for productivity and innovation rather than a disconnected experiment.

Culture plays a decisive role because end-to-end platform accountability requires teams empowered to make business-critical decisions, own outcomes in production, and balance risk, cost, and customer impact without relying on constant escalation.

Looking ahead, India’s influence on the global retail GCC model will deepen. The next generation of centres will be defined by depth of ownership, AI-driven leverage, and outcome-oriented leadership. For GCC leaders, the mandate is clear: narrow focus, take real ownership, and build platforms that deliver sustained enterprise value.