Zero-Based Budgeting for Next-Gen GCC Cost Optimisation

Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are no longer back-office engines; they are strategic centres that need to demonstrate that each rupee invested is generating innovation and competitive advantage. India now has far in excess of 1,900 GCCs and almost 1.9 million professionals; this will increase significantly by 2030 when GCCs will no longer be cost centres but innovation-led centres.

Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB) is the only budgeting method that will be relevant to global capability centers transformation: ZBB will create a necessity to construct budgets with first principles in mind, redistributing funds of the legacy inertia into quantifiable, high-impact projects like automation, AI productisation and capability building. Over the next five years, GCCs that view budgeting as a strategic tool rather than a financial exercise will reap rewards.

The GCC ecosystem of India has brought in billions in revenues in 2024 and is going on to the shared service optimisation, development of products, R&D and data services.

C-suite attention has moved: one of the most popular consulting surveys reveals that strategic cost management and rightsizing are on the list of priorities of most executives as macro volatility and technology investments increase.
Formal ZBB is not widely adopted yet – among organisations, only a percentage are currently using ZBB, providing an early-mover advantage to GCCs that do it well.
The thesis of these facts is futuristic: GCCs that integrate ZBB will turn transparency in cost into faster reinvestment in high-value capabilities.

Why Conventional Budgeting is Failing GCCs.

Annual roll-forward budgets reward history in addition to not showing future impact. In GCCs this is manifested as:

Vendor retainer that was set and forgotten and tooling that was duplicated.
Shadow IT and trial-and-error without value gateways.
Predetermined FTE mindsets that prevent talent reassignment to high-value AI and platform assignments.

The Solution: Bloated operation budgets that do not result in any quantifiable business delivery.

What ZBB Appears To Be Regarding A GCC

A ZBB implies gcc cost optimisations to recalculate in relation to the outcome measures (value-per-employee, time-to-value and ROI on automation). It is conditional, time-boxed funding: micro-grants on experiment pools with 90-day greenlights; elastic capacity micro-spend on platform and cloud based on throughput KPI; training budgets are rationalised by redeployment strategies and productivity lift.

Strategic Pillars

Pillar	Legacy Approach	ZBB Approach (Future-driven)
Allocation logic	Carry-forward budgets	Start over; invest in performance.
Vendor management	Multi-year retainers	Performance SLA modular contracts.
Innovation funding	Last in line	The initial seeding was through experiment pools.
Talent & skilling	Headcount budget	Capacity funding based on skills (redeployable)
Cloud & infra	Fixed provisioning	Elastic, KPI-linked spend

https://inductusgcc.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GCC-Image32.3-1.jpg

Economic Benefits

ZBB transfers cost savings into investable capital as opposed to arbitrary reductions. In the case of GCCs, the economic benefits are obvious:

More economic capital use: Liberated capital can hype automation and platform investments that grow without a proportional growth in headcounts.
Talent leverage: Skill-based budgeting has redirection into more valuable work, which enhances value-per-employee metrics.
Contract optimisation: De-duplication of vendor services actively minimises fixed overheads and enhances bargaining power.
Macro resilience: ZBB develops an agile working position in order to pay shocks of inflation, policy changes and demand fluctuations.

Since GCCs have an increasing presence in the economy and the states are willing to promote growth in GCCs through policies, the macro tailwinds enhance the ROI of ZBB.

Priorities of Implementation

Begin with high-run-rate vendors, cloud, and recurring software.
Form a cross-functional ZBB steering team (Leaders: Finance, HR, IT, BU).
Identify 3-5 outcome measures in each cost category.
Pilot where a single domain (e.g., AI/automation pods) is piloted and then scaled.
Post open reinvestment strategies to integrate top management and talent.

Conclusion

The financial model will isolate passive GCCs, and future-ready centres will be Zero-Based Budgeting. Budgets being custom-crafted, GCCs realise economic benefits, accelerated innovation, better margin profiles and investment back towards global-scale IP. ZBB is more than just a technique for GCC leaders and CFOs who will be creating budgets in their upcoming planning cycles; it’s a means of transforming cost discipline into strategic power.

https://inductusgcc.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GCC-CTA32.1-1.jpg

frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Who are the Pharma GCC development leaders in India?

Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune have become significant pharma innovation centres with global delivery centres of major biotechnological and pharmaceutical firms such as Novartis, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and GSK.

Which economic benefits do Pharma GCCs have?

They offer an economic benefit of calculation, a variety of scientific and technical human resources, and speedy time-to-market. On average, businesses reduce between 25-40 percent of the operational costs and increase the rate of innovation.

Which technologies are influencing Pharma GCC operations nowadays?

The next-generation operations of Pharma GCC focus on advanced molecular modelling, AI/ML-based drug discovery, cloud supercomputing, and data integration platforms, as well as quantum-ready simulations.

What is the role of AI in Pharma GCC processes?

Pharma GCCs use AI to screen molecules, predict the efficacy of drugs, optimise clinical trials and aid in making data-driven decisions, resulting in smarter, faster and safer drug pipelines.

How will Pharma GCCs look in five years to come?

Pharma GCCs will be global innovation ecosystems that are a combination of computational chemistry, generative AI, and quantum computing. They will turn into the hubs linking data science, discovery and regulatory intelligence in the global arena.

https://inductusgcc.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/1-3.png

Aditi

Aditi, with a strong background in forensic science and biotechnology, brings an innovative scientific perspective to her work. Her expertise spans research, analytics, and strategic advisory in consulting and GCC environments. She has published numerous research papers and articles. A versatile writer in both technical and creative domains, Aditi excels at translating complex subjects into compelling insights. Which she aligns seamlessly with consulting, advisory domain, and GCC operations. Her ability to bridge science, business, and storytelling positions her as a strategic thinker who can drive data-informed decision-making.