Innovation without borders: How Consilio is elevating its India GCC

Global capability centres (GCCs) in India are no longer the quiet engines of back-office efficiency. Over the past decade, they have transformed into strategic innovation hubs, fuelling product development, data-driven decision-making and digital transformation for multinational corporations. This shift has been driven by necessity. As global markets grow more complex and client expectations intensify, companies need more than execution—they need new ideas, agility and scale.

For Consilio LLC, a global provider of legal technology and services, India has emerged as a critical node in this transformation. Speaking with People Matters, Brandyn Payne, Chief Employee Experience Officer at Consilio, outlined how the company is positioning its India centres to play a central role in shaping global strategy.

“Necessity has been the single most defining shift,” Payne said. “In recent years all companies face increasing pressure to provide insights and solutions to our clients. Doing that well requires a constant focus on idea generation and creative problem solving. It cannot be a ‘side of the desk’ job.”

The rise of India’s innovation engine

India’s GCC story is closely tied to demographics and experience. The country offers what Payne describes as a “massive early career labour force of digital native employees” alongside the deep institutional knowledge developed over three decades of support centre operations. This combination has made India an attractive base for companies seeking not just scale but also innovation.

To harness this potential, Consilio has invested in dedicated infrastructure. Its recently launched Taara Innovation Centre in Bangalore is designed as a state-of-the-art collaboration lab and multi-use workspace. Together with offices in Hyderabad, Pune and Gurgaon, it brings together some of the firm’s brightest minds. “It gives them a variety of spaces and technologies to help them dream up creative solutions to our clients’ most pressing challenges,” Payne explained.

This model reflects a wider industry trend. Consulting firms such as Deloitte and McKinsey have reported that India’s GCC ecosystem, now numbering more than 1,600 centres, is expected to contribute significantly to global digital transformation, especially in areas like AI, cloud, and advanced analytics.

A voice in global decision-making

Yet scale and infrastructure alone do not guarantee influence. One of the biggest hurdles for India’s GCCs has been overcoming the perception of being implementers rather than leaders. Consilio has responded with what Payne calls a “global/local approach.”

“We believe in one voice for our mission, solutions, and client experience, but we also understand that regional and cultural differences are our competitive advantage,” she said. “We lean heavily on local leaders for both day-to-day operational decision-making and input around larger global goals and priorities.”

This philosophy ensures that India-based leaders are not merely executing instructions from headquarters but actively shaping global priorities. It is a subtle but significant cultural shift, one that requires trust, visibility and shared ownership.

Trust across time zones

Cultural integration remains a recurring challenge for global companies. Time zones, communication styles and organisational hierarchies can create invisible barriers. Payne acknowledges that “building trust across time zones and countries is not easy. It takes effort and planning.”

Consistency is the key, she argued. “Whether we are delivering programs like our Manager 101 or Boost Leadership accelerator, creating cross-functional teams to solve a business challenge, or joining a ConsilioX session to hear personal stories from our colleagues, we design our daily work to provide opportunities to build relationships and respect cultural differences.”

This deliberate effort to cultivate trust reflects broader research on cross-border leadership. A 2024 PwC study noted that multinational firms that systematically embed cultural fluency into their leadership programmes are more likely to see innovation flow seamlessly across geographies.

If trust provides the glue, capability provides the edge. Consilio is doubling down on innovation and digital agility in India, recognising the pace of technological change. “Staying ahead of massive changes to technologies and the capabilities of AI does not just require technical know-how—it requires a mindset of curiosity, constant learning, embracing pivots, and learning from mistakes,” Payne said.

The company is fostering these capabilities through a mix of formal training, shadowing opportunities and on-the-job experimentation. This is critical at a time when AI adoption is accelerating. Gartner forecasts that by 2026, generative AI will be a core element of 80 per cent of enterprise technology strategies.

At the forefront of AI innovation

Consilio’s India teams are not just participants in this transition—they are leading it. They play a central role in the firm’s product development and rapid prototyping cycles, particularly around AI and automation.

“Our India team is at the forefront of both our product development and rapid prototyping processes,” Payne said. She cited work on the firm’s Aurora platform, along with “automations, rapid cycling GenAI enhancements, and prototyping new ways we can do our work more efficiently to provide better upstream support to our clients.”

Beyond core platforms, the company has introduced an internal initiative called HeyAI, which allows any employee to propose AI-driven ideas to improve workflows. Such democratisation of innovation reflects a trend among leading GCCs, where crowdsourcing ideas has become a lever for engagement and speed.

The evolution of India’s GCCs has often been overshadowed by their historic positioning as low-cost alternatives. Payne was candid on the subject. “It is a reality that the Indian labour market can provide some cost leverage to global companies. But the staying power of this market is the ambition and performance of the workforce,” she said.

For Consilio, the focus is on culture and opportunity. “If we provide visibility and opportunities to our colleagues, and create interesting global career paths for them, we spend less time trying to manage this perception and more time highlighting the strengths of this powerhouse region,” Payne added.

This aligns with findings from the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), which has argued that the value of India’s GCCs now lies more in talent and innovation than in cost savings.

When asked what advice she would give to other GCC leaders seeking to elevate their India centres, Payne drew on a moment with Consilio’s youngest employees. Addressing 102 campus joiners at the Taara Innovation Centre, she quoted American comedian Steve Martin: “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

“I have the same advice for our GCC community,” she said. “Serve your clients with excellence, invest in global relationships, and get creative about highlighting the work your teams are doing. The results will follow.”

The road ahead

As global companies recalibrate strategies for resilience and growth, India’s GCCs are likely to play an even more prominent role. The combination of scale, digital skills, and a maturing leadership pipeline is repositioning these centres from cost arbitrage engines to value creation hubs.

For Consilio, the journey reflects a broader lesson: innovation knows no borders. By giving India’s teams both visibility and responsibility, and by embedding trust and agility, the company is proving that geography is not a constraint to global influence.

The implications extend beyond Consilio. They point to a future where India’s GCCs become integral to global boardroom conversations, shaping products, strategies and client experiences worldwide.