How many GCCs are quietly losing ground – not because of what they deliver, but because of how they communicate and manage change?
That was the question Srinivas Sampath and I brought to a live webinar and the conversation that followed confirmed what both of us have been seeing in practice for years.
Most GCCs are operationally strong. Technically capable. Commercially credible.
Yet the change management and communication capability that turns a delivery center into a destination, the kind that builds real brand and reputation with both staff and HQ – remains one of the most underinvested areas in the sector.
The closures and consolidations are a signal, not an anomaly
Technicolor. Wells Fargo. Citigroup. Renault Nissan.
These are not organizations that ran out of capability. They ran out of the trust, alignment and communication infrastructure needed to hold people through transformation.
Staff learnt about closures from the media. Resistance went underground because no one built the channels to surface it honestly. Culture was managed from afar with assumptions that did not match the ground reality.
Every one of those failures has a change and communication explanation at its root.
What good looks like
One of the things we wanted the session to do was move beyond the problem statement. So, we walked through what high-performing GCCs do differently across five maturity stages, from reactive to transforming.
The shift from Stage 2 to Stage 3 is where most GCCs get stuck. You have the basics in place which are some channels, some processes but communication is still largely broadcast, and change is still largely reactive. Getting to Stage 4, where change management becomes a strategic advisor to the business and communication is genuinely data-driven and HQ-integrated, requires a deliberate decision to invest.
The GCCs that make that shift do a few specific things. They run Change Readiness assessments before any major initiative is announced not to tick a box but to shape the approach. They build peer-led Change Champion networks because staff surface what managers never hear. They close the loop publicly after every listening cycle with a visible ‘You Said, We Did’ update. And their site leaders communicate regularly in an unscripted, direct way. Not through filtered corporate messaging.
On the communication side, the best centers treat their HQ relationship as a partnership. That shape global messages before they cascade, not just translate them after the fact. They run anonymous Q&A panels before town halls so that the questions people are sitting with get answered, rather than the safe ones. And they measure outcomes such as comprehension, trust, sentiment trend. Not just activities like newsletter open rates.
The India context deserves an honest conversation
Silence in a town hall does not mean agreement. Yes, does not always mean ‘I will change how I work’. Focus groups surface the consensus that hierarchy permits, not the honest view people hold privately.
These are real dynamics in many India GCC environments, and Srinivas spoke to them from direct experience. The approach that works is designing for the context rather than importing a global playbook unchanged. Anonymous digital channels with no login barrier. Small peer-led listening groups without a manager in the room. Written questions submitted before town halls rather than raised live. And leaders who share their own uncertainty about a change before asking others for honesty.
Building that psychological safety takes time. But the cost of not building it shows up later. In adoption data that looks healthy but masks disengagement, and in attrition that surprises everyone who was reading the surface signals.
The First 100 Days frame
For any site leader stepping into a new role or launching this capability for the first time, we shared a clear set of priorities for the first 100 days. A change readiness audit, a communication channel audit, the establishment of a Champion network, an anonymous feedback mechanism from day one, and a communication promise to staff that sets expectations for how and when they will hear from leadership.
That last piece – about the communication promise creates a contract. Honouring it consistently is what builds the kind of trust that holds a centre together during the hard periods.
What participants walked away with and you can too
Every attendee received two practical tools at the end of the session.
The first is a free GCC Change and Communication Maturity Diagnostic. It is an eight-dimension scorecard covering both change management and communication capability, with a scoring guide that tells you clearly where your GCC sits and what to prioritize next. Running it honestly with your leadership team takes less than 30 minutes and usually surfaces a conversation worth having.
The second is a GCC Change & Communication Strategy Blueprint infographic. A visual summary of the entire framework, designed to be shared with a team or used in a conversation with HQ to build the case for investing in this capability.
If you could not join and would like either resource, drop a comment below (#GCC for the Diagnostic and #change for the GCC Strategy Blueprint) and I will get them across to you.
Over to you
What is the single biggest communication or change challenge your GCC is navigating right now and what has moved the needle?
The more practitioners and leaders share what is real, the sharper the collective thinking gets.
