India does not just lead this sector globally, it defines what one looks like, and European companies are joining fast.
Book a 30-minute callEuropean companies setting up Global Capability Centres in India are joining an already massive and maturing ecosystem, not pioneering something new. India's GCC sector generated $98.4 billion in revenue in FY2026 across 2,117 centres, and European entrants including Carlsberg, Sanofi and Lufthansa have all established centres in the last two years, alongside the far larger population of US-headquartered GCCs that still drive around 70 percent of total demand. The FDI route is fully automatic, and cost savings against equivalent European operations typically run 40 to 60 percent.
This sector runs almost entirely one direction, European talent and capability needs flowing into India, rather than Indian GCC capacity being exported back into Europe. The nearest reverse-flow equivalent is Indian IT services and consulting firms with a European delivery or sales presence, a different business model from the GCC structure itself.
GCCs typically set up as wholly-owned subsidiaries under India's 100% automatic FDI route, with the entity structure, not a product certification, being the main regulatory decision to get right early.
No sector-specific compliance mechanism applies; the parent company's own data protection and cross-border data transfer obligations under GDPR are the primary regulatory consideration when operational data flows between the Indian centre and European headquarters.