In the wave of hiring, the technological arms of the multinationals will eclipse the IT companies

BENGALURU: With large HE service companies that reduce their staff in the first quarter from 2023-24, global capacity centers (GCC), the technology arms of multinational companies, seem poised to outshine the rest of India. technology industry this year in hiring. The big four IT services companies combined saw a reduction of almost 18,000 people in the quarter ending in June. Only TCS had a net addition: just 523. Infosys, Wipro, and HCL had headcount reductions of 6,940, 8,812, and 2,506, respectively. The reduction in the number of employees is even worse than in the first quarter of fiscal year 21, when the pandemic hit.

On the contrary, many GCCs are hiring and many new ones are entering India in search of talent. Lalit Ahuja, founder of ANSR workspace and HR solutions platform, expects GCCs to make an incremental addition of 4-5 lakh employees in FY 2023-24. He says that regardless of economic cycles, GCCs work in tandem with the company’s core programs. Many global companies, he says, are likely to replace their onshore contractors with their GCC workforce.

Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, a partner at growth advisory firm Catalincs, says that since digital transformation is critical to differentiation and growth, GCCs want to “own” those capabilities rather than “lease” them. “Over the past three weeks, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and NatWest announced plans to hire thousands of employees, adding to their combined workforce of more than 60,000 professionals in India. Looking at the quarterly earnings of publicly traded companies over the last two quarters, I am more than convinced that the incremental net addition of employees at GCC this calendar year will be substantially higher than that of traditional third-party IT/BPM companies,” he says.
Nasscom estimates show that out of India’s total tech workforce of about 5 million, GCC’s talent pool exceeds 1.6 million. India has 1,580 GCC technology hubs, and that number is increasing every month. US luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group (NMG) recently established a GCC to develop a new digital playbook that enhances in-store, online and omnichannel experiences. The company plans to hire 500 people for the Bangalore technology center in the next eight to 10 months. Inspire Brands, the second largest restaurant chain in the US with a value of $31 billion, with brands including Arby’s, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings and Dunkin’, recently established a technology innovation center in Hyderabad. India is home to about 25% of the global FMCG/retail GCCs, employing more than 50,000 people. Around 63 retail and CPG companies have technology centers here.