Are GCCs pulling talent away from India’s startups?

For years, India’s startup ecosystem has captured global attention for innovation, driven by the caffeine-fuelled founders, ambitious engineers, and the promise of building the next unicorn from scratch. But a quiet shift is underway. Now the GCCs are aggressively scaling their presence in India, offering top-tier salaries, global exposure, and job stability.

As these centres evolve from back-office support functions to strategic hubs driving AI, cloud, and product innovation, they are attracting a significant share of India’s skilled tech talent, including professionals who once gravitated toward startups. In FY24, approximately 16% of new GCC hires came from startups and product companies, while hiring from traditional IT services firms declined from 32% to 18%, according to industry data.

This shift is part of a larger transformation in India’s tech talent landscape. “Talent mobility in India’s tech sector continues to evolve, with GCCs emerging as ...