Product Development as a Strategic Capability
Product development has evolved from a function embedded within engineering or R&D into a core strategic business capability. In global, digital-first organizations, engineering supports execution, but product development defines what to build, why it matters, and how value is created. This shift is increasingly visible in Global Capability Centers (GCCs), where end-to-end ownership is now consolidated.
Products are no longer treated as one-time deliverables. Instead, they are managed as evolving assets across their entire lifecycle—from idea generation and design to launch and continuous optimization. Sequential, handoff-driven models have given way to iterative, lifecycle-led approaches enabled by cross-functional GCC teams.
In practice, this shift includes continuous idea generation driven by global data and customer insights, agile teams iterating in short cycles, and structured post-launch enhancement to improve performance and relevance across markets.
Expert Perspectives: How GCC Product Development Has Evolved
The evolution of product development within GCCs reflects a deeper shift in ownership and accountability. Mohammed Anzy S, Vice President and Managing Director, Guidewire India, observes that Global Capability Centres are no longer limited to execution or support work. Today, GCCs take full ownership of products from architecture decisions to end-to-end product development. They actively leverage local ecosystems, startups, academic institutions, and digital infrastructure to build solutions with global relevance.
This expanded mandate has elevated GCCs from delivery centers to strategic partners, shaping product roadmaps and enterprise outcomes.
Anjani Madhavi, Country Head – HRP and GCC Head for Bangalore and Pune at HealthEdge, reinforces this shift by highlighting what effective, scaled product development truly requires. According to her, scaled product development is about building a well-oiled engine. It demands holistic thinking across scalability, security, API kits, technical documentation, and business use cases, embedding these elements proactively into the product. That is where real value is created—delivering a market-ready product. GCCs, she notes, have mastered this approach, interfacing seamlessly with global teams while driving every critical aspect of product development.
Together, these perspectives underscore how GCCs are moving decisively from execution to strategic ownership.
What Effective, Scaled Product Development Looks Like in a GCC-Led Model
Anzy further emphasizes the role of AI and collaboration in modern product development. AI, he notes, is becoming a natural part of daily engineering workflows rather than a standalone initiative. The real impact emerges when teams use AI to make faster decisions, reduce delivery bottlenecks, and improve system resilience.
GCCs that combine deep domain expertise, strong cross-functional collaboration, and thoughtful AI adoption are increasingly influencing long-term product value and global product strategy. This integrated approach enables faster innovation without compromising stability or scalability.
The Strategic Purpose of Product Development at Scale
At an enterprise level, product development translates strategy into market-ready solutions that address diverse customer needs across various geographies. It must balance complexity across platforms, regulatory environments, and operating models, while maintaining speed, quality, and compliance.
GCCs enable this balance by centralizing product expertise, reducing time-to-market through integrated ownership, and coordinating strategy and delivery across headquarters and regional teams. As a result, organizations gain consistency without sacrificing responsiveness.
How Product Development Works in GCCs
GCCs operate as strategic hubs bringing together cross-functional teams to manage the full product lifecycle. Structured processes, combined with close collaboration, ensure that products remain technically robust, strategically aligned, and adaptable across regions.
Across industries, GCCs are already demonstrating this impact. Cybersecurity firms such as Sonatype leverage GCCs to enhance global platforms with AI and cloud capabilities. Technology organizations are assigning full ownership of chip design and analytics platforms to GCC teams, accelerating time-to-market while maintaining consistency. In aerospace, GCCs are building AI-driven diagnostic and inspection tools that automate workflows and improve operational efficiency.
These examples highlight a clear reality: GCCs are no longer execution centers; they are driving product innovation and delivering measurable value at scale.
Critical Roles in GCC-Led Product Development
Effective product development relies on specialized, cross-functional roles that ensure clarity, accountability, and collaboration:
- Product Owners / Product Managers: Define product direction, prioritize features, and align outcomes with business goals
- Research & Insights Teams: Lead customer discovery, user research, and market analysis
- Design (UX/UI, Service): Create intuitive, scalable, and localized user experiences
- Engineering & Platform Teams: Build secure, resilient, and high-performing architectures
- Quality, Risk & Compliance: Ensure reliability, regulatory readiness, and operational resilience
- Operations & Delivery: Enable tooling, process efficiency, and cross-team coordination
This role clarity allows GCCs to scale ownership while maintaining a strong separation between strategy and execution.
Emerging Trends in GCC-Led Product Development
GCCs are increasingly transitioning from build centers to full ownership of product strategy, design, and delivery. Key trends include end-to-end ownership of digital and platform products, AI-driven development and testing, modular and reusable architectures, and deep talent pools aligned to long-term roadmaps.
As these trends mature, GCCs are emerging as centers of excellence for AI, cloud, and platform ecosystems, driving global technology roadmaps rather than simply implementing them.
Our PoV
The conversation has moved beyond whether GCCs can own products to whether enterprises are prepared to let them lead. GCCs that control platforms, APIs, and AI-led systems are already driving enterprise competitiveness. Organizations that continue to treat GCCs as extended delivery arms risk falling behind those that recognize them as product-first innovation hubs.
Sources:
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How India’s GCCs are driving global reinvention, Times of India — Times Techies
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The Role of GCCs in Transforming Feature-Based Models to Product-Centric Models, NASSCOM Voices
