Notes from GCC Next Summit 2024 in ITC Grand Chola, Chennai

GCCs (Global Capability Centres) in India are really becoming the new growth engines for exports and talent opportunities. Attending the GCC NEXT SUMMIT 2024, today, in Chennai, I could feel the high energy from companies across the world with their presence here. The GCCs are doing innovative and cutting-edge work that usually wasn’t given to any IT services companies before. Big shoutout to the organisers of GCC Next Summit 2024 for bringing together the who’s who in this sector.

But I have to say, I was a bit surprised that the schedule was running more than an hour late. With six panel discussions—each with five panellists and a host, and four keynotes packed into a one-day program, this was bound to happen. Maybe they could’ve planned that part better.

Anyway, here are some random points from the talks I attended:

• Mr. Navi Radjou, author of “The Frugal Economy”, talked about how GCCs are achieving more with less. He stressed the importance of frugal innovation in today’s world.
• When you’re working in a GCC, it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission from the mothership. Basically, be proactive and aggressive with your suggestions. For instance, an idea from a junior associate in a GCC is now earning over $4 billion per year for a brand!
• With the help of a GCC in one company, websites that were earlier getting updated every six months are now done every month, and the frequency is only increasing.
• The head office should think about what can be done for the GCC, not just the other way around.
• If you’re leading a GCC, think about how you can leverage the gig economy. In one example, a company is sharing in their internal channels small chunks of work for which the corresponding team has no resources, and anyone from other teams can pick them up in their own time if they want to showcase their skills.
• Think of the famous author and business guru Mr. C. K. Prahalad, who talked about “Next Innovation” and folding the future today. To future-proof your business, you should come to India.
• Nowadays, GCCs help companies with future scenario prototyping.
• Eva James, VP – IS/IT at Renault Nissan, discussed the importance of CVEs (Chief Vehicle Engineers) in the automobile industry. Their team has grown to over 12,000 engineers in 15 years. COVID disrupted the idea of knowledge management; earlier, we believed travel was needed for knowledge transfer, but now most of it happens over video calls.
• The best solutions for knowledge repositories come from Generative AI.
• If you’re in a GCC, think about how you can democratise knowledge.
• Dr. Subramani Ramakrishnan of UPS talked about how UPS is shipping 20 million packages daily, which is 2% of the world’s GDP! With over 780 million searches every single day, if they were a search engine, they’d be one of the largest. They’re in B2C, unlike Amazon, which knows 75% of their packages—they can predict, but UPS can’t. Arbitrary knowledge is different from knowledge arbitrage. Their internal geo-mapping solution, ORION, which predates Google Maps, saves them US$300 million by optimising routes for their drivers, avoiding all left turns in the USA.
• Mr. Subram Natarajan, Director at Google Cloud, talked about “Generative AI at Google” and how it can help GCCs.

All in all, the summit was quite insightful despite the delays. It’s exciting to see how GCCs are shaping the future of global business right here from India. If you’re involved with or interested in GCCs, it’s definitely an exciting time!

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