For a while now, India has been driving back-office functions for some of the large enterprises across the world. However, over the past few years, it has taken giant strides towards becoming the innovation hub of the world, by adding strategic value to multi-billion-dollar businesses from around the world, through Global Capability Centres (GCCs) based out of India.

To gain insights into the role and significance of GCCs in India and how they can become future-ready, Automation Anywhere, in collaboration with CNBC TV18 and Forbes India, hosted a panel discussion under its Future Ready India series. The virtual event was a conference of eminent experts – Suman K Das, Managing Director Eli Lilly Services P Ltd; Serge De Vos, Sr. Director Global Operations, AB InBev; Kaushik Majumdar, Managing Director, Principal Global Services; Naveen Gullapalli, Head, NGSC Hyderabad & NBSX; Rama Donepudi, Head of Global Transformation and Innovation Hub (Global Hub), Centre Head – Reckitt Benckiser and Milan Sheth, Executive Vice President, India, Middle East, and Africa, Automation Anywhere – moderated by Mridu Bhandari of CNBC TV18. The dialogue also set out to explore the role that Robotic Process Automation (RPA) could play in the journeys of GCCs.

Milan Sheth kicked off the session by explaining why India has recently been taking center-stage in the GCC arena. “We have abundant process knowledge, domain knowledge, and technical talent. This gives us the potential to play a key role in the digital transformation journey of any global company,” he said. The discussion proceeded to cover sharing of cases of successful GCCs in India and the challenges they faced, the role RPA could play in long term cost optimization and revenue generation for these centers, how automation helps to create better experiences for customers, employees and business partners and how success could be achieved by marrying technology with the core purpose of an organization. The participants agreed that RPA is a crucial component of overall automation possibilities and it lays the foundation for the use of digital intelligence, AI, and more intuitive capabilities.

Showcasing the proof of the pudding, Milan Sheth concluded, “When the pandemic struck, almost 90% of our customers were able to function smoothly because they had not waited for a crisis to integrate automation and digital in their service delivery to end customer; these innovations were already in place.” With respect to future-proofing of GCCs, he averred, “Unlike the people-led models of the past, next-gen GCCs will be defined by a people + technology-led model.”

The discussion ended with a consensus on the great opportunities for Indian GCCs to continue to play an innovative role in global parent organizations’ digital transformation journeys.