Can Gujarat Lure GCC Elites Away from Bengaluru and Hyderabad?
By Shalini Mondal ·
Global capability centres (GCCs) have traditionally been drawn to tech talent hubs like Bengaluru and Hyderabad. But Gujarat is now making a concerted push to attract both expansion-led and greenfield GCC investments.
The Gujarat government’s Department of Science and Technology recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Inductus Group, a Delhi-NCR-based GCC advisory and consulting firm, to collaborate on strengthening the state’s GCC ecosystem.
Gujarat missed the IT bus in the 1980s and again in the 2000s. But the government has now created a new strategy to offer unique incentives to encourage the hiring of more local IT and ITES expertise. The Gujarat IT/ITES Policy 2022–27 primarily provides funding and support to IT companies and pledges to generate 100,000 new direct jobs and increase the state’s annual IT exports from ₹3,000 crore to ₹25,000 crore.
The state government is also bent on leveraging its GCC policy. It aims to attract at least 250 new centres and ₹10,000 crore investment in the state by offering targeted incentives like ₹200 crore capex and ₹40 crore opex support, loan interest assistance, easing regulations, and encouraging investments in research and development.
Since its launch in February last year, the state government has received expressions of interest (EOIs) from eight companies, collectively proposing investments of around ₹18,000 crore to set up R&D-focused facilities.
These proposals span a diverse set of sectors, including semiconductors, capital markets and financial services, engineering R&D, chemicals and materials, healthcare and life sciences, as well as technology and industrial manufacturing.
“Some of the GCCs have already come up… particularly in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar...” remarks Alouk Kumar, CEO, Inductus Group, in a conversation with AIM.
Gujarat is also an emerging talent hub, with the state hosting the seventh-largest workforce in India at around 4 million professionals. Its focus on scale and specialisation is expected to play a critical role in attracting high-value investments, including GCCs, to the state.
Inductus Group also signed an MoU with Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) as part of a coordinated push to build an enabling ecosystem. “We also met the GIFT City… they are also quite positive,” Kumar notes, adding that further collaboration plans are in the pipeline.
Talent: The Biggest Bottleneck
Despite strong infrastructure and policy support, Gujarat faces a fundamental challenge—talent availability.
“The biggest challenge happens to be… the availability of talent,” he admits. “You cannot compare Gujarat with… Karnataka, Hyderabad, and some other centres.”
This gap has been one of the key reasons for the state’s initial tier-2 positioning. However, stakeholders are exploring ways to address it.
One strategy involves attracting talent from other regions by leveraging quality of life and cost advantages. “We found that most of the people are from the western or the northern part of the country… given an opportunity, they would prefer to shift to Gujarat,” Kumar says.
Cities like Pune are also expected to play a role in feeding talent into Gujarat’s ecosystem.
At the same time, efforts are underway to build local talent pipelines through academic collaborations.
“My team has already reached out to some of the good universities… next round of discussion is expected to take place in the month of May,” he says. “Without that, you can’t expect any GCC… to be successful.”
Meanwhile, Gujarat aims to upskill over 2.5 lakh individuals in AI-related domains as part of its AI Action Plan, published in July last year, creating a talent pipeline to support both public-sector transformation and private-sector innovation. It also incentivises professionals and undergraduate students to upskill by reimbursing 50–75% of their course fees, per the GCC policy.
Semiconductors, Automotive, and BFSI
Rather than adopting a broad-based approach, Gujarat’s GCC strategy is being deliberately shaped around a few high-potential sectors where the state believes it holds a clear competitive edge.
The focus is on semiconductors, automotive, and digital financial services and insurance (DFSI). The emphasis on financial services is closely linked to GIFT City, India’s flagship International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), which offers a strong regulatory and incentive framework.
This sectoral prioritisation is expected to drive the emergence of specialised GCC clusters, as global companies increasingly align their India operations with domain expertise rather than relying solely on cost advantages.
The state’s positioning, however, is undergoing a notable shift.
Initially conceptualised as a tier-2 GCC hub—primarily catering to companies looking to set up satellite or expansion centres—Gujarat is now seeing growing interest from global firms willing to establish primary operations directly in the state, particularly from Europe and Japan.
Growth Targets
Kumar explains that Gujarat currently hosts around 50 GCCs, but the state has set ambitious targets for expansion.
“We are anticipating around 100 per year,” he says, referring to potential annual additions across mid-market and large GCCs. “70% would belong to mid-sized corporations… and 30% would be your large corporations,” he notes.
The pipeline is being driven in part by rising interest from global markets, particularly Japan and Europe. “Japan is quite bullish… many of the Japanese corporations… now I do see a good number of organisations coming,” he says.
The surge in GCC interest is not happening in isolation—it is being shaped by broader global dynamics.
“The number of inquiries has grown sizably in the last couple of quarters,” Kumar notes.
Key drivers include geopolitical shifts, supply chain disruptions, and upcoming trade agreements. “And the FTA… with Europe… and the UK… these are the reasons why this market is growing at a rapid rate.”
Japan, in particular, is emerging as a major contributor to future GCC growth. There are over 350 Japanese companies operating in the state.
“Currently, there are 1,600 Japanese corporations operating in India… this number is expected to grow… beyond 5,000,” he states.
The interest in high-tech manufacturing is certainly visible on the ground. Japan’s Horiba Group is establishing a semiconductor-grade R&D centre in Ahmedabad. Meanwhile, 30 Japanese companies are setting up their plants in chemicals, gases, and consumables, Union Minister for Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw announced last year.
Looking ahead, the next wave of GCCs is expected to move beyond cost-driven models toward innovation and R&D.
For Gujarat, the opportunity is clear—but so are the challenges. Strong infrastructure and policy support have created a solid foundation, but talent development and execution quality will determine whether the state can truly emerge as a leading GCC hub.