As we highlighted in our Global Competency Center (GCC) Services 2025 Market Insights™ report that GCCs have emerged as strategic engines of enterprise growth over the past couple of years, driven by a convergence of digital ambition and ecosystem readiness. India is the leading GCC destination but remains largely untapped, offering ample opportunity for further growth. As enterprises become more value-driven, GCCs are evolving into hubs of innovation, product engineering, and digital transformation.
Avasant was recently invited to the GCC Roundtable at Lenovo’s India Head Office in Bengaluru to understand how the company is positioning itself as a strategic partner for GCCs in India. The session was led by Shailendra Katyal, vice president and managing director of Lenovo India, S.K. Venkataraghavan, director of Lenovo Solutions and Services Group (SSG), and Amit Luthra, managing director of Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG). The leadership team outlined Lenovo’s vision for India as a “design-to-delivery” hub for global enterprises by highlighting that “one that moves decisively beyond cost-arbitrage to become a center for AI-led innovation, engineering, and global operations.”
The Lenovo team highlighted its core strategy, referred to as the “Design to Delivery” model that integrates manufacturing, R&D, advanced services, and global delivery capabilities from India. This model enables India-based GCCs to operate as integrated global hubs for product engineering, IT operations, and digital services rather than as back-office extensions. Additionally, they positioned India as lucrative for this role due to its engineering depth, operational maturity, and ability to scale complex global mandates.
At the start of the event, Luthra framed the evolution of GCCs around five structural shifts:
As highlighted, these shifts reflect the reality that GCCs are no longer peripheral delivery arms. They are becoming global owners of platforms, data, and transformation programs—particularly in sectors such as BFSI, manufacturing, engineering, healthcare, and fintech.
Luthra stated that the foundation of Lenovo’s GCC offering is its hybrid AI model, known as “Smarter AI for All.” This framework spans:
For GCCs handling sensitive global data and mission-critical workloads, this hybrid approach enables AI deployment aligned with data sovereignty, regulatory needs, and operational context. It will be relevant for India-based GCCs that increasingly own global platforms and IP.
Furthermore, the company’s comprehensive Hybrid AI Factory and AI Library provide prebuilt, validated, and customizable AI agents across IT operations, customer support, legal, and knowledge management, accelerating time-to-value for GCCs seeking to operationalize AI at scale.
During the event, Venkataraghavan highlighted the end-to-end managed digital workplace portfolio, spanning:
The Lenovo Digital Workplace offers various solutions for the above portfolio, including generative AI and predictive AI, security everywhere, enterprise sustainability, and connected systems. For GCCs managing tens of thousands of employees across distributed locations, this integrated model is critical to maintaining a consistent global employee experience. In line with this, Venkataraghavan noted that “productivity is no longer device-centric—it is outcome-centric, driven by AI-enabled workflows and predictive support.”
Cybersecurity emerged as a core differentiator in Lenovo’s GCC strategy. As emphasized at the event, every 11 seconds a cyberattack occurs. The average cost of ransomware attack mitigation is $1.8M, and over 83% of firms have encountered BIOS or firmware attacks. Lenovo has embedded security from the endpoint BIOS layer through to enterprise security and network operations centers (SOC/NOC) operations.
Its portfolio spans:
For GCCs operating global infrastructure from India, Lenovo’s integrated security stack enables them to meet enterprise-grade and regulatory expectations while scaling AI and digital platforms.
From an operating model perspective, the leadership team also emphasized outcome-based and consumption-driven delivery through Lenovo TruScale. This allows GCCs to adopt:
This model improves cost transparency and scalability, highlighting it as two persistent challenges for GCC leaders when building business cases for global headquarters.
From the overall event, the key takeaway was when Luthra stated that, “Most enterprises are embedding sustainability across processes, technology, and operations, recognizing that scaling AI initiatives demands significant energy consumption.” Therefore, sustainability is no longer an adjunct; it is becoming a board-level mandate for GCCs. Lenovo’s sustainability portfolio spans:
These capabilities enable India-based GCCs to align with global ESG expectations while managing the energy and material intensity of AI-driven growth.
Overall, the event was highly insightful, underscoring how Lenovo’s India-focused strategy positions it as a full-stack enabler of next-generation GCCs. This aligns closely with Avasant’s perspective in the Pioneering Innovation in Global Capability Centers report, which identifies two key differentiators for future GCCs: talent orchestration and technology leadership.
Beyond selling infrastructure or devices, Lenovo is building an integrated operating model that brings together AI platforms, hybrid infrastructure, digital workplace services, cybersecurity, and sustainability. As GCCs in India evolve into secure, AI-led global delivery and innovation hubs, Lenovo’s “design-to-delivery” approach and hybrid AI framework resonate strongly with enterprise priorities. The session reinforced that the future of GCCs will be shaped less by cost efficiency and more by their ability to own platforms, data, and outcomes.
By Amar Verma, Lead Analyst, and Sahaj Kumar, Research Director, Avasant
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