Nearly 90% of India’s Global Capability Centre (GCC) leaders are confident of retaining their global leadership position through 2030, but talent and skills gaps could constrain growth, according to a PwC India-FICCI study, Navigating the Skills Imperative for India’s GCCs in the AI Era.
Based on a survey of 200 senior GCC executives across eight industries, the study finds that 72% of GCCs need to reskill or upskill more than 40% of their workforce. While most currently allocate 3–5% of operating budgets to talent development, 94% believe this should increase to at least 6%.
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.”
The study finds 86% of GCC leaders expect AI to bring substantial or transformational changes to work by 2030. Domain expertise combined with technology capabilities is identified as the biggest talent supply constraint by 62% of leaders.
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.”
The report also highlights low leadership AI literacy, rising reskilling requirements across sectors and an average 8.69-month time-to-productivity for new hires. It recommends stronger industry-academia collaboration, curriculum changes and greater government support for GCC reskilling programmes.
