* 72% of GCCs believe they must upskill more than 40% of their workforce to maximise their value.
Nearly 90% of India's Global Capability Centre (GCC) leaders are confident about retaining their global leadership position through 2030 but cite unresolved talent and skill gaps across AI and sector-specific knowledge as risks that could retard growth, according to PwC India-FICCI’s study titled, “Navigating the skills imperative for India's GCCs in the AI era.”
The report, based on a survey of 200 senior GCC executives across eight industries, finds that GCC leaders believe workforce upskilling is an urgent requirement. At least 72% of GCCs across sectors and sizes must reskill or upskill over 40% of their workforce. This entails enterprise-wide scale, not incremental programmes. Most GCCs currently allocate 3–5% of operating budgets to talent development. However, an overwhelming 94% believe investments must rise to at least 6%, with more than a quarter expecting spending to exceed 8%.
Rajesh Ojha, Partner and Leader - GCC Market Segment, PwC India, said, “India's GCC story is at an inflection point. GCCs are increasingly becoming the enterprise nerve centre where strategic decision-making, digital innovation, and AI-led transformation converge to create global business impact. But sustaining this shift will require a fundamental reimagining of workflows, leadership models, and skilling ecosystems. The GCCs that succeed will be those that build composite skills and capabilities, combining frontier AI skills with deep domain knowledge and human judgment.”
As enterprises increasingly deploy AI across core operations, the report finds that GCCs are shifting from being cost-efficient service providers to becoming AI-native intelligence cores with 86% of leaders expecting AI to bring substantial or transformational change to the nature of work by 2030. A blend of frontier AI capabilities (data engineering, machine learning, cybersecurity) and foundational competencies (domain expertise, business judgment, strategic leadership) will be the new competitive advantage.
Raghav Narsalay, Partner and Leader – Research and Insight Hub, PwC India, said: “ AI aspirations are outpacing leadership preparedness, and the gap between hiring talent and making it truly AI-ready needs to be bridged through deliberate, structured, and sector-relevant skilling pathways .”
Key insights from the report:
Top talent supply constraints for GCCs: 62% of leaders cite the absence of professionals combining domain expertise with tech capabilities as the biggest supply-side constraint, followed by intense competition for talent (55%) and a shortage of senior leaders with AI-era strategic competencies (52%).
AI literacy gap at the top: Leadership AI literacy stands at just 27% on average, with over 90% of GCCs reporting that 40% or fewer of their leadership team possess sufficient AI literacy for strategic decision-making.
Sector-specific pressure points: Reskilling needs are steepest in regulated, knowledge-intensive sectors like energy (87%), life sciences (80%), and healthcare (80%), though even the lowest-need sectors (BFSI, TMT, manufacturing) sit near 50%, making it a universal challenge.
Slow time-to-productivity: New hires take an average of 8.69 months to become fully productive and is a friction point which stands between talent ambition and execution.
Policy asks from industry: 57% of leaders want AI and digital modules embedded into engineering and management curricula, while 51% recommend government co-funding of GCC reskilling programmes.
About the report: The findings in this report are based on a primary survey of 200 senior GCC decision-makers, including C-suite executives, business leaders, and GCC heads, spanning eight industries across India's leading GCC hubs. The respondent base skews toward mature GCC operations, with nearly two-thirds representing organisations employing more than 500 professionals, and 45% operating as multi-functional centres of excellence delivering capabilities across multiple service lines. The survey data is supplemented by qualitative interviews with GCC leaders, industry experts, and policymakers, and is supported by PwC India's proprietary analysis of the sector.
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