India is facing a dual disruption: exporters struggling under steep tariffs and IT professionals experiencing layoffs despite record industry profits. Though from different worlds, both share a common thread, job insecurity that threatens India’s export revenues and skilled workforce.

Here, Global Capability Centres (GCCs) can play a transformative role. No longer limited to back-office functions, GCCs have evolved into innovation hubs driving product design, supply-chain analytics, compliance, and advanced technologies. Their expansion into Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities has also decentralised opportunities, fostering regional development and diversifying talent pools.

For exporters, GCCs can run tariff-simulation exercises, identify new markets beyond the U.S., and provide product design expertise to make Indian goods more premium and less susceptible to price sensitivity. This helps cushion the blow of trade restrictions while sustaining business continuity.

For workers, especially laid-off IT professionals, GCCs offer a path of re-skilling and redeployment into roles such as trade analytics, supply chain optimisation, and market research. This ensures India retains its human capital while reducing the impact of layoffs.

By connecting exporters with displaced talent, GCCs act as shock absorbers against global volatility. They protect jobs, nurture innovation, and strengthen India’s resilience.

Reimagined this way, GCCs are not just corporate cost centres, they are national resilience hubs, capable of turning uncertainty into opportunity and safeguarding India’s growth story.