Enterprises Leverage Global In-House Centers (GICs) to Create Centers of Excellence to Drive Innovation, Digital Transformation | Press Release

Growing GIC Center Segment Now Accounts for One-Fourth of $185 Billion Global Services Market—Everest Group

Enterprises are increasingly leveraging global in-house centers (GICs) as strategic partners; GICs are playing a significant role in enterprises’ digital transformation journeys as they move from a “arbitrage-first model” toward a “digital-first model.” According to Everest Group, GICs are perfectly suited to serve as Centers of Excellence, driving innovation for their parent companies. One key way that GICs are accomplishing this is by collaborating with the external ecosystem, such as nimble tech startups.

Three models typically adopted by GICs to engage with external innovation ecosystems comprise:

  1. Startup evaluation: The GIC identifies and shortlists startups for the parent organization. No infrastructure or financial support is offered to the startups, but the GIC typically helps the startups in building domain knowledge.
  2. Project-based engagement: The GIC evaluates startups, which are then hired as technology vendors on commercial terms to implement turnkey solutions. This model offers higher predictability in deriving tangible benefits from the engagement.
  3. Incubation and acceleration: The GIC acts as an incubator and runs the accelerator program: Typically, the GIC engages with three to five startups for a dedicated period, offering infrastructure, technology, financial support and mentorship. This model allows experimenting with future technologies and the bringing in of disruptive innovations.

“GICs typically have an enterprise-wide perspective, deep domain and process experience, and access to niche skills at a favorable cost, and so, for these reasons, GICs are often in a unique position to foster innovation and serve as Centers of Excellence for their parent companies,” said Sakshi Garg, practice director at Everest Group. “Leading GICs are adopting several best practices for fostering innovation, such as dedicated investments for innovation, special recognition for thought leadership, and driving customer centricity to grow beyond the service delivery mindset.”

The global sourcing market continued to evolve and grow rapidly in 2017 to cross US$185 billion, and the global in-house center (GIC) model remains an integral component of this evolution, accounting for one-fourth of the market, according to Everest Group.

The GIC market saw a 10 percent increase in 2017 over 2016 in the number of new GIC setups by companies from technology and communications, manufacturing, healthcare, and energy and utility verticals. The market has grown consistently with more than 2,800 centers set up across leading offshore and nearshore locations, compared to approximately 2,100 about five years ago.

The research supporting these findings is summarized in “Global In-house Center (GIC) Landscape Annual Report 2018 – GICs Emerging as Innovation CoEs for Global Enterprises,” a report recently published by Everest Group. This report provides a deep dive into the GIC landscape and a year-on-year analysis of GIC trends. The research brings out key insights into the GIC market across locations, verticals and functions, and concludes with an assessment of the role played by GICs to drive innovation for the enterprises.

***Download a complimentary abstract of the report here.***

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