Enterprises building captives in India
India Global Capability Centers (GCCs) have moved past back-office. The new generation owns AI/ML, product engineering and digital transformation for the parent enterprise. The economics are well-understood — 50–70% cost arbitrage on engineering talent vs the USA/UK, with a senior labour pool that's deeper than any other emerging market. We help you stand one up.
Who builds a GCC
- Mid-to-large enterprises with 50+ engineering roles offshore — at that scale a captive beats a vendor on cost and control.
- BFSI and regulated industries that need long-term, domain-deep engineering capacity under their own brand and IP control.
- AI/ML-heavy companies that want a deep ML/data engineering team they can't easily recruit at home.
What we provide end-to-end
- Entity setup — Private Limited company registration, GST, PAN/TAN, professional tax, compliance with the Companies Act 2013.
- Tax and transfer-pricing structure — STPI / SEZ benefits where applicable; transfer-pricing documentation and benchmarking.
- HR & talent infrastructure — recruitment pipelines, onboarding, payroll, benefits, performance management, retention programmes.
- Physical infrastructure — workspace in Tier-1 Indian cities (Noida, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Mumbai).
- Security & IT — VPN, MFA, endpoint protection, data classification, ISO 27001-ready controls, regulator-aware (RBI, IRDAI, SEBI) audit trails.
- Talent hiring — pipelines for senior engineering, AI/ML, BFSI domain experts, finance ops, design, product and operations.
- Managed-services bridge — your GCC's first 30–50 engineers can sit on our payroll while the entity is being established, transferring over when ready.
How a GCC engagement runs
1.Strategy & business case— financial modelling, location selection, target organisation chart.
2. Entity setup— incorporation, compliance, tax structure, banking.
3. Infrastructure & hiring (parallel)— workspace, IT, first leadership and engineering hires.
4. Operational launch— first 20–50 engineers active under the captive entity.
5. Scale-out— talent ramps to target size; we transition out of operational support.
6. Optional ongoing services — recruitment partnership, training, infrastructure management beyond launch.
Compare with other engagement models
| Staff Aug | Offshore Dev Centre | Global Capability Centre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engagement length | Weeks–months | 1–5 years | Multi-year, permanent |
| Engineers employed by | Redian | Redian | You (your captive) |
| Setup time | 2 weeks | Scoped after Discovery | Scoped after Discovery |
| Best for | Spike capacity | Long-term capacity | Permanent shore, IP control |
| IP ownership | Yours | Yours | Yours |
| Long-term cost | Highest | Mid | Lowest |
Why Redian for GCC setup
- 9+ years operating in India — we built our own delivery centre in Noida; we know the operational playbook from the inside.
- Multi-region perspective — we run delivery centres in India, Kenya and the UAE; we understand the trade-offs across geographies.
- BFSI heritage — we know the regulatory expectations for India captives serving BFSI parent companies (DPDPA, RBI outsourcing guidelines, IRDAI controls).
- Managed-services bridge — your first 30–50 engineers can be Redian-employed while your captive is being incorporated, transferring over at the right time.
Entity types for an India GCC
When you set up a Global Capability Center in India you are choosing between three legal structures, each with different tax, employment and repatriation characteristics:
- Private Limited Company (Pvt Ltd) — the default. Full separation from parent, own board, own PAN, own audit obligations. Best for GCCs with 50+ engineers and a multi-year commitment.
- Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) — lighter compliance overhead, no dividend distribution tax, pass-through taxation. Best for smaller GCCs (10–30 engineers) or shared-services arms where the parent wants tax pass-through.
- Branch or Liaison Office — for parent-office extension without a separate India entity. Restrictive on revenue-generating activity — usable only when the GCC is pure cost-center work for the parent.
Redian coordinates entity setup through partner CS / CA firms; incorporation covers PAN, TAN, GSTIN, PF, ESIC, professional tax and Shops & Establishments registration, with the schedule agreed against your actual scope before we start.
How a full India GCC setup runs
- Discovery — entity structure decision, location selection (Noida vs Bengaluru vs Hyderabad vs Chennai vs Pune), first hires interviewing.
- Entity incorporation in parallel with seed-team recruitment (Redian-badged during ramp); office fitout, IT infrastructure, HR ops setup.
- First cohort operational — parent-side onboarding, security integration, tooling access.
- Headcount ramp to target size — Redian engineers running the work under our EOR envelope.
- Transition to client-badged headcount — retention bonuses funded into the engagement to reduce ramp-loss.
- Steady state — GCC operates under client management with Redian in a residual advisory role.
Schedule and shape are agreed in writing at the end of Discovery, against your actual entity type, headcount and city choice.
Common GCC pitfalls
- Underestimating the entity setup burn — pure legal + accounting cost for a Pvt Ltd + registrations + first-year audit runs $30–60K. Budget for it before you sign the SoW.
- Skipping the interim EOR phase — trying to hire directly to your unincorporated entity means offer-letter delays, candidate drop-off and ramp-loss. Using Redian's EOR envelope for the first 12 months solves this cleanly.
- Under-investing in HR ops — a GCC of 50+ engineers needs an HR business partner, payroll ops and a training programme from day one. Redian's transition includes HR-ops handover documentation and hiring support for these roles.
- Choosing the wrong city — Bengaluru is expensive and has high attrition. Pune and Hyderabad often deliver equivalent talent at 10–20% lower cost and materially better retention. Every city page in this network breaks the trade-offs down.
Locations we deliver in
Same delivery discipline, same MSA, day-rates calibrated for each market — we run IT Staff Augmentation and GCC seed-team engagements from every hub below.
- IT Staff Augmentation in Delhi
- IT Staff Augmentation in Noida
- IT Staff Augmentation in Gurgaon
- IT Staff Augmentation in Mumbai
- IT Staff Augmentation in Pune
- IT Staff Augmentation in Hyderabad
- IT Staff Augmentation in Bengaluru
- IT Staff Augmentation in Chennai
- IT Staff Augmentation in Kenya
- IT Staff Augmentation in South Africa
- IT Staff Augmentation in United States
- IT Staff Augmentation in United Kingdom
- IT Staff Augmentation in Germany
- IT Staff Augmentation in Netherlands
- IT Staff Augmentation in Australia
