Welcome to the Times Techies Talks that we are having in association with Publicis Sapient. We are today discussing a space that is becoming very exciting for the tech industry and indeed for India in general, Global Capability Centers or GCCs. These are the tech and operations arms of MNCs in India. As we have been recently writing, GCC's revenues have become a significant part of India's GDP and an even more significant part of India's services exports. I find that a lot of international magazines are now picking up on the theme and showcasing what India is going through in the GCC area. GCCs have evolved massively over the past 20 years. They are no longer back office operations. They are increasingly becoming vital contributors to their parent organization's strategic goals. This transformation necessitates a shift towards delivering value aligned with broader business objectives. Today we are going to discuss how GCCs can move up that value chain and become indispensable partners to their parent organizations. How do you move to that position? What strategic maneuvers are necessary to achieve that position? Why don't you start, Neeraj?
The first thing is the center to be like any other center that you would have in the home location. The way I want to say it is the mindset. We need to start thinking from a mindset that, especially in our context, we have a center which is in Gurgaon, Melbourne, and Sydney. I think that mindset has to be all over the organization. I think that's a starting point to say this is what we need in terms of how we should be thinking to get the real value out there. The ambitions we talked about, I think the ambition is big. It's no more about, as you said, cost arbitrage or being an execution center. It is about delivering the value and innovation to our customers because at the heart of every organization is the customer and that's what matters to us. I think the bold steps that probably we need to do is to build that mindset across the organization. We are one organization and when you bring the talent, it is location agnostic. Where you get the best talent, you bring in and they will deliver the value. That is there. I think what we need to do also is very important that everybody is thinking about the customer. Each and every colleague that we have should know what is it they do impacts the end customer because only when you're thinking from that perspective, you can bring the real value and innovation because innovation has multiple dimensions. Sometimes we just focus on how we can be more productive, how we can deliver things faster and all those things. That's a good part of innovation. Another part of innovation is what is it we deliver that values to our end customer and that will only happen when everybody starts thinking. I think what we need to do is the mindset change, the customer centricity in the organization and those are two very important things in my mind.
Your parent company is very clear this is where it needs to be done, India is where it needs to be done.
Absolutely. I think they're very clear in their mind this is the place where it can happen. If not here, probably it's not going to happen anywhere else. I would say the two things that stand out for me is how we align culturally, which removes some of the friction that you often see between the headquarters and GCCs and how do I understand my strategy. That again aligns to customer centricity, transformation and other things. When we set up our teams, we understand what we are going to deliver. Right from day one, some of our induction processes, whether it is within LTC or within each of the platforms as we call it, we start from that. What is the CEO's vision and his or her core objective and then how it trickles down to each of the platforms delivering that. We call it the golden thread, right from your CEO's objective to a developer's objective, how are they linked?
I think I'll echo some of the sentiment here, but largely the key is that for us, how well connected we are, like are we sharing the same goal, mission, vision statement as our parent organization. So if Lowe's wants to grow at a certain clip, that's what we will contribute to. And it really helps because then you're not having an India specific strategy really. And that also reflects very structurally in Lowe's. So for example, we have a concept of one leader in a box. So if a leader sits out of India, they'll have teams across India and US and that's where it ends. So it's also very structurally reflecting. It's a decision taken whether in the US or India are applicable to the entire organization. I think to me, the prerequisites are there's an orientation and there are a couple of examples I can think of design. Orientation isn't something you've seen at Sapien, right? We've been in the country now for 24 years. I've been there pretty much all the 24 years that we've been here. But I think the orientation is really about why or why not. I think at Sapien, the choice we've always made is why not? Because if you ever think about should we be distributed? Should we drive strategic work from India? Should we make a strategic bet in India? These are questions that if you ask as a why, there are very articulate answers. And you can ask as a why not, and there are very articulate answers. So now the question is your orientation on what choice are you making? If you're always betting on the why not, I think you're always trying to move faster because then you will solve every problem. If someone said, I'm going to start a new operation anywhere, you will have teething troubles. The biggest issue with teams, when you build teams, is that do teams really feel like peers? And teams feel like peers when they're all empowered in the same manner. If I have an organizational policy that says in India you can only do X, whereas in New York someone else is empowered to do something different, you will not feel like a peer group. You'll be like, I feel I can't make this choice where someone else can. So I think that's very important even from a design standpoint. How are you empowering everybody to make the same kind of choices, have the same expectation? But see, this is where sometimes, and this is where I go back to some of the cultural element, we fall into the trap of saying, oh, but I live in India, so I don't know the customer. If I'm working for a Formula One as a brand, there's been no Formula One race in India for the last 12 years. I don't understand this brand. That's a cop-out then. Because you'll be like, look here, I'm going to lead this. I'm going to be here. So when I talk about communications, I always tell people that I have the highest respect for someone who can write the first draft. Anybody with reasonable intelligence can review a draft. The toughest thing is writing the first draft. So similarly, having the first perspective on something should be an expectation you should have irrespective of geography. And so you should have an expectation from someone from India being able to come up with a completely new idea even if it's half-baked. And having others contribute to build on it instead of always waiting for someone to set a frame and then fill in that frame. So those to me are the design aspects and the orientation which I feel will help definitely accelerate the potential that I feel the space has.
I'm sure you work with a lot of GCCs and the newer ones that are coming in. What is the level of ambition that you see? Have things changed a lot?
I think it's changed. I think if you went 10, 15 years back, a lot of the ambition was give me operational efficiency and give me predictability of size you can get to. I think now the ambition is a lot more complex. At least a few of them that we work with, they're like I want to set up a 300-person data intelligence unit that is going to be strategic. Whereas 10 years back, their ambition might have been different. So you're looking for both. They're looking for perspective on, okay, how do I... I think the point you made, how do you make it culturally seamless? It's not a conversation 10, 15 years back most people are having. But today the fact that it needs to be culturally seamless is seen as a prerequisite to get it right. Otherwise you'll only attract a kind of talent that will come in and say, I see a three-year stint, then I need to move out because this place, I will not go beyond a certain level. That only comes with being culturally seamless. So we see a lot more aspect about how do I unlock value in a more strategic level rather than just at a more tactical or a more near-term level is definitely one thing that we see. So the human element has definitely, I think, become a lot more to the fore than just a structural element of, I need an India footprint because it gives me some percentage points back into the bottom line.
Now, apart from the people you make your products for, the companies you make your products for, how do you treat your headquarters? Do you treat them as well as customers because you work as per their plan despite having your own India agenda? And also when it comes to actually getting on ground and getting things done for your customers, what are the sort of bold actions that you really need to take at your GCC to get things done?
Your customer is anyone who is defined as a customer for the company, right? So there may be internal customers, external customers, but not really from a center to center standpoint, right? So what we think of as a customer is our end customer, the associates who are working for us in the company, how do we make internal applications, technology, or anything else. If we are talking to, as a technology person, if I'm talking to finance, then they are my customers. So I think that's the definition that we will go with. Publish it is, I think we are getting better and better results out of it. To be agile.
Neeraj, transformation, is that becoming absolutely imperative for you, for the GCC itself?
Yeah, I think because my thought is transformation is most for an organization to survive. As once we said, that's the only concern. And if that's a key for organization, we are part of the organization, that's the most important part. You've got to drive the most important thing. So, yes.
Okay. And your parent company? I mean, for the parent company itself, it's important that you now take on all of these transformation projects, is it?
So, I will go back to that. I think what we are building is from a mindset. We're saying we have multiple centers. Just like we have a center in Sydney, we have a center in Gurgaon. So, you know, the whole of they versus us has to disappear, as we discussed earlier. And I think the moment that disappears, it ties up everything. You know, the best, I mean, in my view, the best combination is if I can make the whole team sit in this room, there cannot be a better combination. But that's not the luxury we have in the world. So, now what you want to do is not to split also in 10 locations. But what we say is, okay, this needs to be done based on capability, based on experience and everything. How do we get a more optimized way of setting up the teams so that, you know, the individual teams have full ownership and accountability? Because speed is another part, right? It's a very fine balance between if you split the work across multiple teams, there's too much of handovers and everything. It makes things complicated. But you need to have distributed teams. So, it's all about case-to-case basis, coming up with the right split. But in a way, that is the unit which might be, you know, in technology, what we call squads. They are independent. They can run faster. So, it's a very fine balance that you do. So, the thought process is, you know, how do you leverage all that you have in the best combination versus, oh, is it in India, is it in Melbourne or is it in Sydney?
So, when we talk about transformation, are we looking at incremental progress? Are we looking at radical changes and, you know, big, big things going to happen? What is it if each one of you could call out? What sort of change are we talking about?
Given the competent landscape that we have, right, the changing technologies, my belief is we're no longer looking at incremental benefits, right? It's how I leapfrog.
Ashish, when you say leapfrog, what is an example of a leapfrog?
Waiting for the perfect condition to deliver, right? I think we don't have the luxury for that. Waiting for everything to fall in place, right? How do I get bold? How do I make sure that, you know, I grab what's the biggest problem out there, right? And not wait for things to mature, right, is what would be my, what is my approach, right? So, take the biggest thing, solve it for the headquarters, right? So, that would require you to leapfrog.
Okay. Gen AI comes, you jump into it and try and find out.
With the right checks and balances in place, as I said, I mean, banking industry is a heavily regulated industry. So, you have to, you know, have the fine balance there.
Which big idea can you think of lately?
Several, right? I think, you know, you have probably known about our self-checkout machines, which have gone and, right, it has changed how we think about experiences on the self-checkout terminals. Today, 60% of our actual store traffic is going through self-checkout machines and we are able to pinpoint the experience to a single machine, change the experience to a single machine. So, that's a big one for us. 60% of our store traffic goes through self-checkout. So, that's a big one. It's a strategy change overall.
Yeah, I think it's, I really agree with Manusvi and the others. It's both, right? I think you have to seek the leapfrogging opportunities, but don't lose out on the incremental. It's a bit like, you know, T20, right? Most topical these days. You got to look for the boundary hits, but the singles are crucial as well. So, you can't, the main thing is don't have a dot ball. So, don't have a dead moment, right? You got to be moving all the time, but look for the big opportunities. I think that's where it is. I mean, I think that's again an orientation. Are you always seeking the incremental, but you're looking for the, you know, you're looking for the moments that can create outsized benefits. Like for us, when we look at, we're investing heavily in productivity platforms. We're investing heavily in looking at, you know, ideas that can be productized. So, yeah, it's becoming a fascinating moment for India. I think it's becoming a bigger and bigger story by the day. Every single week we hear about some new GCC coming into India and with very, very big plans. And as all of you said, I mean, you have to transform fast if you really want to create value for your parent organization. So, thank you all for a great discussion. I'm sure we'll have many more in the coming days because I think that this is really becoming a big, big moment for India. Thank you all. Thank you.