Industry Leaders Endorse Keralam’s Push for a Second GCC Wave

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
Keralam’s push for a second GCC wave has received further momentum with industry leaders and experts at a domain-focused event here endorsing that the state’s proactive governance, readily available talent pool, low attrition rate and quality of life as the core strengths that can elevate the state into a major Global Capability Center (GCC) destination.

Top GCC leaders who operate from the state were deliberating at the session on ‘The Next Wave of GCC Growth: Why Kerala. Why Now’ at the second edition of Economic Times GCC World SURGE, India’s largest residential GCC summit, at Kovalam on Saturday.

Muraleedharan Manningal CEO, Information and Communication Technology Academy of Kerala (ICTAK); Arun Thekkethil, Delivery Centre Head, TCS; Hari Prasad VP & Managing Director, India, H&R Block; Bhaskar Verma Regional Director, Nasscom; Richard Antony EY GDS, Director; Jison John MD and CEO (India) and Chief Delivery Officer (Asia and Africa), Allianz Services GmbH participated in the session.

Suja Chandy, Chief Sustainability Officer & Managing Director, India, Zafin moderated the session.

The state government’s visionary policies to create a readily available talent pipeline through the collaboration of industry and academia is one of the major reasons why GCCs thrive in Kerala, noted Muraleedharan Manningal.

Keralam’s low attrition rate, cost effectiveness, deep domain knowledge and strong academia-industry interface are key factors for any global company to start their GCC facility in the state, said Hari Prasad.

“We have partnered with ICTAK and Additional Skill Acquisition Programme Kerala (ASAP Kerala) to get highly trained and skilled talent from the state itself which helped our company scale up in a short period of time,” said Hari Prasad.

Keralam’s vibrant environment and an ecosystem where components like governance, academia and industry complimenting each other make the state an ideal hub for GCCs to flourish, noted Arun Thekkethil.

Keralam has now shifted its focus from building capability centers to building value and innovation, he added.

Bhaskar Verma urged global companies to start their R & D facilities in Kerala as the state has a ripe ecosystem that offers the domain knowledge of pioneering research institutes, and also industry-ready and domain-driven talent.

Jison John and Shri Richard Antony shared similar views and hailed state’s readily available talent pool and quality of life that attributes to its low attrition rate which are prioritized by companies to set up a GCC facility.

Earlier, Seeram Sambasiva Rao, Special Secretary, Department of Electronics & IT, Government of Keralam, reinforced Keralam’s claim of being an ideal GCC hub, with his presentation ‘ Keralam: An Ecosystem for Global Capability’

Other than a highly educated talent pool, low attrition rate and cost competitiveness, Kerala has a strong global diaspora that can be tapped for investment and market access, he said. A full-fledged digital governance system including KFON, State Data Center and state-wide citizen platforms can alsobe leveraged by GCCs, Sambasiva Rao said.

The state is delivering value through eight pillars: Tech infrastructure which includes IT corridors, land pooling and private parks, GCC policy which includes GCC boilerplate, outreach consortium, focus sectors including emerging technology, semicon, space and aviation, Startup and innovation with focus on deep tech, education and research which includes TRICK centres, Maker Village 2.0 and industry linkage, investment facilitation via Future corporation and global outreach programs, digital governance and policy enablement through private parks, data centers, Shri Sambasiva Rao highlighted in his presentation.

ET GCC World Surge brings together around 125 GCC leaders for deliberating on key topics including headquarter dynamics, building credibility across geographies, attracting entrepreneurial talent, and convincing the global firms of the advantages of placing bigger bets on India.