Infosys expands GCC practice, ropes in Deval Shah to lead

BENGALURU: Infosys is expanding its capabilities with a full-fledged global capability centre (GCC) practice and has appointed Deval Shah, the former MD and country head of India for Danske IT and Support Services India, as its new GCC leader, sources told TOI. Shah is currently the VP and delivery head at Infosys. Two years ago, Infosys won a $454-million contract from Danske Bank. As part of this, Infosys acquired Danske Bank's IT centre in India, which employs 1,400 professionals. Headquartered in Denmark, Danske Bank provides banking services to personal and business customers, as well as large corporate and institutional customers. Infosys is accelerating the bank's technology transformation, optimising their access to talent and capabilities, and improving productivity.

In an internal note to employees, Infosys stated that as part of Project Altius , one of its key growth priorities is to win more business from GCCs. "The GCC market is expanding rapidly, offering opportunities for both multi-year transformation deals for setting up new GCCs (BOT (build, operate and transfer), assisted captives, JVs, etc.) and providing embedded support for scaling up existing ones," the note said. It also mentioned that the firm is witnessing strong momentum in their deal pipeline, with multiple deals requiring support in solutioning and other support functions, e.g., commercials, legal, tax compliance, etc. "In that context, to enhance our capabilities in setting up GCCs and in line with industry best practices, we are excited to announce the launch of Infosys' GCC practice, expanding the existing COE (centre of excellence) into a full-fledged practice," the note showed.

When TOI asked Infosys CEO Salil Parekh about the extended scope on GCCs, he said the company is working very closely with GCCs and clients, either to help set up or scale different models. "Recently, we announced a very large win in GCC with a services business and with an airline business. So we feel quite good."

In Jan, TOI reported that Infosys is setting up a GCC for Lufthansa in Bengaluru as part of the nearly $300 million IT contract renewed with the German airline. This GCC aims to enhance Lufthansa Group's software and product development as well as increase support for its products for the external airline market customers.

Recently, Cognizant appointed Sailaja Josyula as the global head of its GCC service line. Based in Hyderabad, she will oversee the execution of Cognizant's global GCC strategy, establishing and leading a cross-functional team. Josyula returned to Cognizant after a brief stint at EY. Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar told TOI in a recent interview that GCCs are not adversaries, and Cognizant is beginning to work actively with them to do some parts of their work.