The country’s fifth-largest information technology (IT) services company started its consulting business arm called ‘TechM Consulting’ on 4 November last year, and a global capability centre (GCC) offering called ‘SST Next-Gen GCC Offering’ on 1 April 2025, according to two internal memos shared with employees and accessed by Mint.
GCCs are offshore centres owned by multinational companies to run back-end work like IT infrastructure, human resources, supply chain and sales management.
This means that the Pune-based company, which ended the 12 months through March 2024 with $6.3 billion in revenue, is looking to expand its offerings to customers and grow its revenue streams under Joshi, who came on board in December 2023.
Hiring picks up near client sites
Tech Mahindra’s consulting business was earlier a part of its Business Excellence (BE) division. This has now been made into a specific offering to clients.
“During my conversations with clients, I see a constant struggle to realise business value while managing the technology disruption. They constantly look to master the art of envisioning, responding, adapting, and maintaining change momentum. It is necessitating our clients to seek partners, who can add significant insights and capabilities to help them drive the change and deliver sustained success,” said Joshi, as part of the memo sent to employees in November 2024.
An email sent to Tech Mahindra on Saturday remained unanswered.
Mint could not independently ascertain the head of the consulting business unit but has gathered from the memo that the consulting arm would run horizontally across Tech Mahindra’s verticals including financial services, communications, manufacturing, and healthcare. This arm would also be supported by its service delivery, data and artificial intelligence teams.
The company is also hiring talent close to client locations.
“We continue to augment consulting talent close to the client. Recent additions have joined us from organisations like EY, KPMG, PWC, Bosch etc,” said Joshi as part of the internal communication.
Consulting key to driving growth
Mint had reported on the importance of having a stable consulting business to get more revenue from clients.
Accenture Plc, the world’s largest IT services company by revenue, is a good example. The Dublin-headquartered company got half, or $8.3 billion, of its $16.7 billion revenue from its consulting business in the quarter ended February 2025. To be sure, none of the homegrown IT services companies provide revenue from their consulting businesses.
Having a strong consulting business can help drive more revenue as IT service providers get exposure to a larger scope of work they can do for clients, especially in the time of GenAI as consulting services help clients realise the value of GenAI and its broader impact.
To be sure, Accenture is more than ten times the size of Tech Mahindra. Homegrown IT outsourcers have their own consulting business.
India’s second-largest IT services firm Infosys started a consulting practice called Infosys Consulting in 2004, whereas Wipro Ltd runs its consulting arm called Wipro Consulting. Less than four months after Tech Mahindra launched its consulting offering, Wipro announced former Accenture Consulting managing director, Amit Kumar, as the head of its consulting business on 14 February.
New GCC model aims for large deals
Less than six months after announcing a consulting unit, Tech Mahindra flagged off a GCC offering under its ‘Strategic Solutioning and Transformation’ (SST) team called the ‘SST Next-Gen GCC Offering.’
Joshi announced the SST team when he outlined an ambitious three-year roadmap to increase the company’s operating margins to 15% and achieve higher revenue growth than the country’s top seven IT outsourcing companies by March 2027. The SST team would focus on large deals and have a presence across all of Tech Mahindra’s industries.
“Everyone is hopping on the GCC bandwagon now. What Tech Mahindra is doing is what is needed by IT services companies in this AI age. IT services companies need to look at increasing their revenue streams and increasing their focus on consulting, and working with GCCs is aimed at just that,” said a Mumbai-based analyst working at a domestic brokerage.
To be sure, Tech Mahindra already has a GCC offering. As part of this, the company offers workforce to clients on a monthly basis for functions ranging from AI services to customer support and cloud support. Tech Mahindra works with about 70 GCCs and bills clients on a monthly basis for the workforce it provides.
The new offering is a part of the large deals team of Tech Mahindra.
“At the heart of the offering is a hub-and-spoke model with India as a central hub, amplifying the country’s strategic importance in the global GCC ecosystem. The playbook integrates industry perspectives and TechM’s proven strengths to support cross-vertical, scalable GCC engagements,” said Joshi in an internal email sent to employees on 1 April and accessed by Mint.
A hub-and-spoke model refers to one central office serving as a large nerve centre and connected with smaller distribution centres.
India adds a GCC every third day
Tech Mahindra is one of the companies in talks with Ohio-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. to set-up a 300-member GCC in Hyderabad. The IT outsourcer would look after the tyre company’s IT operations and research and development (R&D) business wings.
India had 1,700 GCCs in FY24, up 32% from March 2019, which translates to 500 new GCCs in almost 1,500 days, according to IT industry lobby Nasscom. This implies that a GCC is being set up in the country every third day. GCCs generated about $64.6 billion in revenue in FY24. To be sure, the country’s IT industry was worth $269 billion the same year.
Nasscom estimates the number of Indian GCCs to touch 2,200 by March 2030, with a market size of $105 billion.
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