IT major Wipro eyes GCC service line in bid to catch up with peers

Wipro will help multinational companies set up their GCCs in India, operate and then transfer the entity back to the parent company - popularly known as the BOT model - after a few years

Avik Das Bengaluru

3 min read Last Updated : Apr 14 2025 | 12:10 AM IST

Wipro is looking to set up a dedicated global capability centre (GCC) service line following in the footsteps of Infosys and Cognizant, as it aims to capture a slice of a segment that has caught the attention of all information technology (IT) services players, according to people familiar with the matter.

Wipro will help multinational companies set up their GCCs in India, operate and then transfer the entity back to the parent company — popularly known as the BOT model — after a few years.

Indian IT services companies set up GCCs for their clients by providing them with employees and helping them run the centres. The GCCs in turn pay the IT companies for the employees or give them a share of the revenue.

The move is the latest by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Srini Palia to boost slowing revenue in India’s fourth largest IT services company as he looks to fix multiple issues that have stymied steady growth over the years.

Palia, who recently completed a year in office, realigned the company’s global business lines to match clients’ evolving business needs and bank more on emerging technology opportunities such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud, and digital transformation.

Wipro declined to comment citing its quiet period ahead of its fourth quarter earnings next week.

GCCs are the technology centres of foreign companies in India. They used to be called captive centres but many in the industry now prefer the term GCC given their growing maturity and the greater autonomy they enjoy from their headquarters. Over the past decade, many of these centres have insourced a large slice of the technology work that was usually outsourced to IT companies.

The sources mentioned above also said that the company is in the process of hiring an external person to head the service line. Business Standard could not immediately determine if the hiring has been done already. However, a job posting in the company’s website seeking a global GCC practice head shows that the position has already been filled.

Wipro’s plan comes on the heels of larger rival Cognizant appointing Sailaja Josyula to lead the Nasdaq-listed company’s GCC business. Cognizant, which has also fallen behind its peers, is looking to position itself among the top four IT companies by 2027 by setting up new GCCs and transforming existing GCCs.

Other companies which have also banked on GCCs to drive growth are Infosys and Tech Mahindra. For the latter, partnering with technology centres has been part of its CEO Mohit Joshi’s strategy to boost margins, improve revenue, and weed out accounts that do not contribute to the topline. Infosys has also said that it works with many GCCs in the financial services, telecommunications, and life sciences sector.

Wipro’s move indicates yet another attempt to reposition itself in the IT services sector and catch up with its rivals who have marched ahead of the company over the past decade. Previous CEOs such as Abidali Neemuchwala and Thierry Delaporte have repeatedly tried to turn the company founded by IT czar Azim Premji around but have failed to do so with growth being in low single digits even when the industry’s growth was on an upward trajectory.