Opportunity for the future: GCCs evolution in the age of GenAI

By Sameer Dhanrajani – CEO, AIQRATE & 3AI

Global Capability Centers (GCC’s) are reflections of strategic components to parent organisation’s business imperatives. GCC’s are at an inflection point as the pace at which GenAI is changing every aspect is exponential and at high velocity. The rapid transformation and innovation of GCC’s today is driven largely by ability for them to position Gen AI strategic imperative for their parent organisations. Gen AI is seen to the Trojan horse to catapult GCC’s to the next level on innovation & transformation. In recent times; GCC story is in a changing era of value and transformative arbitrage.

In midst of recent developments ,most of the GCCs are aiming towards deploying suite of Gen AI led strategies to position themselves up as the model template of Gen AI Centre of Excellence . It is widely predicted that Gen AI will disrupt and transform capability centres in the coming years. How are Global Capability Centers in India evolve as model template for developing Gen AI capabilities & solutions? How have the AI strategies of GCCs transformed with reference to parent organisation? whilst delivering tangible business outcomes, innovation & transformation for parent organisations?

The following are the strategic considerations for GCC’s to consider to move incrementally in the value chain & develop and edge and start winning with GenAI :
 
1. Gen AI transformation 
Gen AI has become the main focus areas for GCCs in India. The increasing AI penetration in GCCs across business verticals has made it imperative to focus on Gen AI. Hence, GCCs are upping their innovation agenda by building bespoke Gen AI capabilities , solutions and offerings. Accelerated Gen AI adoption has transcended industry verticals, with organisations exploring different use cases and application areas. GCCs in India are strategically leveraging one of the following approaches to drive the Gen AI penetration ahead:
 Federated approach: Different teams within GCCs drive Gen AI initiatives
 Centralised approach: Focus is to build a central team with top talent and niche skills that would cater to the parent organisation requirements
 Partner ecosystem : Paves a new channel for GCCs by partnering with research
institutes , start-ups , accelerators
 Hybrid Approach: A mix of any two or more above mentioned approaches, and can be leveraged according to GCC’s needs and constraints.
 Ecosystem creation : Startups /research institutes/Accelerators

One of the crucial ways that GCCs can boost their innovation agenda is by collaborating with start-ups, research institutes , accelerators. Hence, GCCs are employing a variety of strategies to build the ecosystem. These collaborations are a combination of build, buy, and
partner models:
 Platform evangelisation: GCCs offer access to their Gen AI platforms to start-ups
 License or vendor agreement: GCCs and start-ups enter into a license agreement to create solutions
 Co-innovate: Start-ups and GCCs collaborate to co-create new solutions & capabilities
 Acqui-hire: GCCs acquire start-ups for the talent & capability
 Hybrid approach: A mix of any two or more above mentioned approaches, and can be leveraged according to GCC’s needs and constraints.
 Ecosystem creation : Startups /research institutes/Accelerator

 Research centres: GCCs collaborate with academic institutes for joint IP creation, open research, customised programs
 Joint Accelerator program : GCCs & Accelerators build joint program for customised startups cohort

To drive these ecosystem creation models, GCCs can leverage different approaches. Further, successful collaboration programs have a high degree of customisation, with clearly defined objectives and talent allocation to drive tangible and impact driven business outcomes.

2. Differentiated Gen AI capabilities & solutions
GCCs are increasingly shifting to competency , capability creation models to reduce time-to-market. In this model, the Gen AI Center of Competence teams are aligned to capability lines of businesses where Gen AI centre of competence are responsible for creating Gen AI capabilities , roadmaps and new value offerings, in collaboration with parent organisation’s business teams. This alignment and specific roles have clear visibility of the business user
requirement. Further, capability creation combined with parent organisation’s alignment helps in tangible value outcomes.

In several cases, Gen AI teams are building new range of innovation around Gen AI based capabilities and solutions to showcase ensuing GCC as model template for innovation & transformation . GCCs need to conceptualise a bespoke strategy for building and sustaining GenAI Center of Competence and keep it up on the value chain with mature and measured transformation & innovation led matrices.

3. GenAI talent mapping strategy
With the evolution of analytics, data sciences, AI to Gen AI , the lines between different skills are blurring. GCCs are witnessing a convergence of skills required across verticals. The strategic shift of GCCs towards Gen AI centre of capability model has led to the creation of AI, data engineering & architect roles. To build skills in Gen AI & data engineering, GCCs are adopting a hybrid approach. The skill development roadmap for Gen AI is a combination
of build and buy strategies.

The decision to acquire talent from the ecosystem or internally build capabilities is a function of three parameters –Maturity of GCC ’s existing Gen AI capabilities in the desired or adjacent areas ,Tactical nature of skill requirement & Availability and accessibility of talent in the ecosystem. There’s always a heavy Inclination towards building skills in-house within GCCs to begin with and a majority of GCCs have stressed upon that the bulk of the future deployment in Gen AI areas will be through in-house skill-building and reskilling initiatives and subsequently, look at partners coming into the fray.

However, talent mapping strategy for building Gen AI capability is a measured approach else can result in being a Achilles heel for GCC and HR leaders.  GCCs in India are uniquely positioned to drive the next wave of growth with building high impact Gen AI capabilities , there are slew of innovative & transformative models that they are working upon to up the ante and trigger new customer experience, products & services and unleash business transformation for the parent organisations. This will not only set the existing GCCs on the path to cutting-edge innovation but also pave the way for other global organisations contemplating GCC setup in India.

Generative AI is becoming front runner to drive innovation & transformation for GCC’s and GCCs are at a vantage position to steer the parent organisations to become AI -powered enterprise.