Global firms are tapping India’s workers like never before

Back in the 1990s global firms such as General Electric, a once-mighty conglomerate, began to rely on Indian workers to perform tedious tasks such as filling in forms and patching software for mainframe computers. Over time much of that drudgery was absorbed by Indian outsourcers such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro. Now foreign firms have begun to think bigger about the types of white-collar jobs that can be done by India’s cheap but well-educated workers. Many have set up “global capability centres” (GCCs) to offshore tasks from data analysis to research and development (R&D), helping fuel a new wave of services-led growth for India.