India’s Global Capability Centres (GCCs) used to be tasked with delivering insights. Now, they are being asked to own decisions. AI makes that shift possible.
For years, GCCs built their reputation on execution, efficiency, scale, and the ability to deliver high-quality analytics from afar. Today, that mandate is changing. Across global pharma, GCCs in India are moving from supporting decisions to shaping them, taking on responsibilities that were once firmly anchored at headquarters.
“What we are seeing is a structural reset. Execution is what happens when strategy meets reality, and reality always wins,” says Sreemannarayana Balineni, ED BSI Data Analytics, Novartis International. “Ambitious teams rarely fail because of poor strategy. They fail because systems are fragmented, data is scattered, and approvals slow everything down.”
He added that the real value jump, the one that moves the needle, happens when organisations stop chasing productivity gains and start engineering for performance.
This reduces manual effort, speeds up cycles, improves target achievement, and enables scaling without proportionally increasing headcount. “Great organisations don't wait for superheroes. They build systems that make excellence repeatable,” says Balineni.
The Scale Behind the Shift
India’s pharma GCC ecosystem is already operating at an extraordinary scale. Over 80 healthcare and life sciences centres are based in the country, with 23 of the world’s top 50 companies running operations here. These centres collectively manage an estimated 45% of global drug discovery activity, 60% of regulatory affairs, and more than half of pharmacovigilance work.
The underlying analytics market is expanding just as rapidly, projected to grow from $13.78 billion in 2025 to $27.75 billion by 2032.
But the more telling shift is qualitative. Today, 92% of GCC leaders say their centres contribute beyond cost arbitrage, and 87% have taken ownership of end-to-end global processes. The language has changed. GCCs have moved away from being delivery hubs and are increasingly being positioned as decision centres.
AI Makes it Possible, If Used Correctly
What differentiates leading GCCs today is not how much AI they have deployed, but how deeply it is embedded into decision-making.
Over the past few years, many centres have built sophisticated AI capabilities models, platforms, and pilots that demonstrate clear technical maturity. Yet far fewer have translated that capability into decisions that the enterprise is willing to stand behind.
The technology is fine; it is the structure that often throws problems.
Data remains fragmented across commercial, medical, and market access functions. Governance models designed for static reporting struggle to accommodate adaptive AI systems. And most critically, organisations continue to grapple with a fundamental question: who owns an outcome when an algorithm shapes the recommendation? That question takes on more gravity now, with the rise of agentic systems that can autonomously act and self-improve.
According to EY’s GCC Pulse Survey 2025, 58% of GCCs in India are already investing in agentic AI, with many more planning to follow.
“The platform is only half the answer."
The journey organisations are on is to redesign the process from first principles by asking the right questions: what problem are we solving, how do we bring the right data together, how soon can the decision maker act on the learnings & when they act, is it worth it?
No amount of AI investment will substitute for this,” says Madhu Krishnan, Head of Data Science & BI Solutions, GCC, Bristol Myers Squibb.
India’s Talent Advantage
India’s leadership in this transition is deeply human.
With one of the highest rates of generative AI adoption globally, the workforce within India’s GCC ecosystem brings a rare combination of skills: advanced analytics, domain expertise, and a nuanced understanding of regulatory and commercial realities.4
In life sciences, this intersection matters. Building an AI model for an oncology field force requires clinical context, market understanding, and precision in execution. The concentration of such talent within India’s GCCs is a defining advantage that is difficult to replicate at scale elsewhere.
“The next chapter of AI is not about what systems can do, but about what leaders choose to own. When AI is embedded with the right data, platforms, and governance, it has the power to reshape how organisations think, decide, and take accountability for performance at enterprise scale,” says Manish Mittal, Managing Principal, Axtria.
What Decision Ownership Actually Looks Like
The GCCs successfully making this transition share distinct characteristics. They build interoperable, enterprise-grade platforms rather than siloed experiments; otherwise, AI that cannot scale across markets and functions cannot influence global decisions.
They measure success in terms of business outcomes rather than analytical throughput. They focus on how decisions change instead of how many models are deployed.
They embed AI directly into workflows, where recommendations influence real-time actions. That reduces decision latency and ensures accountability remains clearly defined between human judgment and machine intelligence.
“The greatest barrier to transformation is not technology. Today's GCCs have moved well beyond data and platforms,” says Neha Agarwal, Head of Data Enablement & Operations, Novartis. “They are reimagining the entire decision-making process, with AI thinking alongside humans rather than just accelerating tasks. That shift from support centre to global nerve centre is not a technology upgrade. It is a leadership choice. And the organisations making it boldly are the ones setting the pace for everyone else."
Most importantly, successful GCCs operate with a clear ownership mindset: the model may recommend, but the organisation owns the outcome.
The Road Ahead
India’s pharma GCC market is projected to reach $52 billion by 2030.2 The centres that lead this next phase will not be those with the most data or the most advanced models. They will be the ones that solve the harder problem: bridging the gap between insight and decision at enterprise scale.
That shift will require new governance models, clearer accountability, and a willingness on the part of global headquarters to redistribute decision-making authority. The GCCs that make this transition will become the nerve centres where the choices shaping global pharma are made.
Continue the Conversation
For leaders actively navigating this shift from insight to decision ownership, these questions will take centre stage at Axtria Ignite 2026 (US Edition), to be held on 10–11 June 2026 in Princeton, New Jersey.
Register now
References
- InductusGCC. Healthcare GCCs in India: where the world’s pharmaceutical innovation actually happens [Internet]. 2026 Jan 2 [cited 2026 Mar 19]. Available from: https://inductusgcc.com/healthcare-gccs-in-india-where-the-worlds-pharmaceutical-innovation-actually-happens/
- InductusGCC. Data-driven R&D: how life sciences firms leverage Indian GCCs [Internet]. [cited 2026 Mar 19]. Available from: https://inductusgcc.com/data-driven-rd-how-life-sciences-firms-leverage-indian-gccs/
- EY India. EY GCC Pulse Survey 2025: 58% GCCs in India investing in agentic AI [Internet]. 2025 Nov 23 [cited 2026 Mar 19]. Available from: https://www.ey.com/en_in/newsroom/2025/11/58-percent-gccs-in-india-investing-in-agentic-ai-two-third-creating-dedicated-innovation-teams-to-globalize-ideas-ey-gcc-pulse-survey-2025
- EY India. How GCCs in India are shaping the future of the life sciences industry [Internet]. 2025 Sep 23 [cited 2026 Mar 19]. Available from: https://www.ey.com/en_in/insights/consulting/global-capability-centers/how-gcc-in-india-are-shaping-the-future-of-the-life-sciences-industry
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