The Smartest UK Firms Are Building Small, Not Big, in India

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Hi everyone,   

For years, the idea of building a GCC in India felt like a luxury reserved for the Big Four and MNCs. They had the money, the management layers, and the scale to justify it.  

Mid-tier firms, especially in accounting and finance, stayed on the sidelines. Some had already been burned by outsourcing, weak oversight, inconsistent delivery, and teams that never truly felt part of the firm. 

But the game has changed.  

India’s GCC ecosystem has matured, both in infrastructure and capability. Mid-tier firms now have access to the same talent and technology infrastructure that global players do.  

The only thing that’s been missing is belief, and the right model.  

From Cost Arbitrage to Capability Advantage 

What makes the GCC model positioned for success is that you’re not buying capacity, you’re building capability. And it’s the mid-tier firms that are benefitting most from this shift. 

That’s the signal: the GCC isn’t a cheaper delivery unit anymore. 

A good GCC doesn’t just mirror your UK team’s work. It takes on specialist functions that push your firm forward.  

Think advanced reporting, data analytics, process design, and automation, the things that help you scale without adding more partners or managers in London. 

How to do it right: 

• Start with a capability blueprint. Identify where your firm’s bandwidth breaks, usually month-end, analytics, or compliance. Design your India team around fixing those pressure points.  

• Make the India team responsible for improvements. Don’t just offshore execution. Let them redesign processes, document SOPs, and automate recurring tasks.  

• Recruit for problem-solvers, not processors. Prioritise hires with analytical backgrounds or cross-functional exposure, people who can spot inefficiencies, not just follow instructions.  

When your GCC owns outcomes, not just tasks, you unlock compounding value every month, faster reporting, cleaner data, and a far more resilient business structure. 

Smaller Centres, Smarter Structures 

The biggest myth around GCCs is that they only make sense at scale. The new reality is the opposite.  

That’s mid-market territory. These firms start small, but they design smartly, using hybrid leadership models, integrated reporting lines, and shared tools. 

Some of the most efficient setups we’ve seen are 15- to 30-member teams that run like high-performance cells, tight reporting, clear governance, and complete visibility. 

A small, well-run GCC plugged into your firm’s existing processes outperforms a large, disconnected one every time.   

How to get it right: 

• Appoint a UK sponsor. Your GCC should have a direct line to a senior UK partner or finance head who owns its success.  

• Design local leadership early. Even with a small team, you need a strong India lead who handles training, reviews, and cultural continuity.  

• Build in scalability from day one. Use standardised tools (like Teams, Power BI, or Practice Ignition) and shared documentation platforms to ensure the first 10 people work like the next 50 will.  

All in all, the focus shouldn’t be on how many people you hire but how seamlessly they fit into your firm’s daily rhythm. 

The Rise of Finance and Analytics Hubs 

Finance and analytics are where India’s GCC ecosystem is exploding, and where mid-tier firms stand to gain the most.  

Traditional outsourcing never solved the real bottleneck: disconnected ledgers, manual consolidation, and lack of financial insight. GCCs are fixing that, not just by processing data but by making sense of it. 

Today’s GCCs are running group consolidations, cashflow forecasting, margin analysis, and scenario planning for UK firms. They’re integrating financial data across multiple entities and building analytics dashboards that give partners real-time visibility into performance. 

How to do it right: 

• Automate your consolidation early. Equip your GCC with multi-entity accounting and BI tools that remove spreadsheet dependency.  

• Move insight creation offshore. Let the India team own variance analysis, margin tracking, and performance dashboards, the work that informs decisions, not just compliance.  

• Keep explainability central. Every financial output must be traceable back to source entries. Build the habit of data integrity early so that scaling never compromises accuracy.  

Once your India team starts generating insight, not just reports, you stop thinking of it as an extension. It becomes your finance backbone.  

How We’re Helping Firms Build the Right GCC 

At Samera, we’ve spent years helping firms build offshore teams, and we’ve made our share of mistakes along the way. That’s exactly why our approach to GCCs is different. 

For us, it’s not an outsourcing model. It’s an ownership model. 

Whether it’s finance, analytics, or business operations, we help you build a GCC that fits your firm’s current stage, one that’s lean today and scalable tomorrow. 

Explore how we’re helping firms build smarter GCCs in India: 

Cheers, 

Arun 

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