If you had to be live in India this quarter, which model would let you do it without trading away control, compliance, or culture?

India’s GCC landscape is no longer a back-office story. It has shifted from being a pure cost location to becoming what many reports now call the “GCC capital of the world,” with more than 1,700 centres and nearly two million professionals delivering everything from AI and analytics to global finance and tax.

In that landscape, how you enter matters as much as whether you enter.

That is where engagement models come in.

This piece walks through the four primary models OBOX works with, and how to think about them as a sequence, not as isolated choices. It builds on our internal GCC Engagement Models guide and case work with global clients.

Start with outcomes, not acronyms

Before you compare EOR, GaaS, BOT, and FLEXI, it helps to anchor on what your organisation must achieve in the next 6 to 24 months.

Most leadership teams are balancing some version of the following:

How fast do we need talent on the ground

How much ownership do we want over IP, data, and process from day one

How close to “global audit ready” do we need to be

What cost structure will still look rational in year three, not only in year one

How important is cultural continuity with headquarters

In practice, successful India journeys rarely start with full ownership on day one.

They usually start with speed and learning, then move toward control and optimisation as confidence grows.

The four models below sit along that spectrum.

1. Employer of Record (EOR): Hire now, decide structure later

1. Employer of Record (EOR): Hire now, decide structure later

For many companies, the first decision is not “What kind of centre should we build?”.

It is “Can we hire the right people in India quickly, without creating legal or tax exposure for the group?”

The EOR model answers that question.

Under EOR, a partner such as OBOX becomes the legal employer of record for your India-based team, while you retain day-to-day control of work, priorities, and outcomes.

The partner handles the end-to-end recruitment cycle, employment contracts, payroll, statutory deductions (PF, ESIC, TDS), benefits, and local compliance. You direct the work as if the employees were part of your own organisation, with aligned reporting lines and performance expectations.

EOR fits well if you:

Need to be live in India this quarter

Want to validate a function, market, or delivery model before setting up an entity

Prefer flexibility to scale up or down without restructuring

Want a compliant structure that can stand up to scrutiny from group auditors and regulators

This is why many technology, SaaS, and professional services firms begin their India entry with EOR and only consider a GCC once they reach a meaningful team size and see proof of quality, retention, and commercial benefit.

2. GCC-as-a-Service (GaaS): A turnkey centre that still feels like yours

2. GCC-as-a-Service (GaaS): A turnkey centre that still feels like yours

Some organisations know they want more than a small pilot. They have a clear view that India will be a long-term capability hub, but they do not want to build every layer themselves in year one.

For this profile, GCC as a Service (GaaS) has become a natural choice.

GaaS gives you a centre that looks and behaves like an in-house GCC, while a specialist partner runs the underlying machinery. That usually covers entity support where needed, hiring, HR and payroll operations, accounting, tax and regulatory compliance, resident director (RD) and registered office (RO) requirements, workspace, IT assets, and vendor management.

Your teams still own:

Roadmaps and IP

Operating standards and ways of working

Priorities, metrics, and delivery outcomes

The advantage is that you can move from decision to operational readiness in weeks rather than many months, while keeping a single line of accountability for HR, finance, tax, and legal processes.

Industry analysis shows that this type of managed GCC or GaaS construct is increasingly common, especially among firms that want to tap India’s talent at scale but remain cautious on overhead and governance load in the early years.

Want an integrated solution that covers people, processes, and infrastructure

Need a centre that is audit-ready from day one

See India as a multi-year capability base, not a short-term experiment

3. Build – Operate –Transfer (BOT): Structured path to eventual ownership

3. Build – Operate –Transfer (BOT): Structured path to eventual ownership

For organisations that are clear about long-term ownership but prefer to de-risk the early years, Build–Operate–Transfer (BOT) remains a familiar and useful construct.

In a BOT model, a partner designs and builds the India centre, runs it for a defined period, and then transfers it to you once performance, culture, and compliance are stable.

Typically, this involves:

Design of the operating model, location, and functions that sit in India

Hiring and ramp-up under the partner’s operating framework

A defined “operate” period, often two to three years, where the partner runs day-to-day operations within agreed guardrails

A planned transfer phase where employees, infrastructure, and contracts move into your entity, with continuity for people and processes

BOT is often used by BFSI, manufacturing, and industrial clients that have clear scale and sensitivity requirements and want a measured, milestone-based journey to full ownership.

It works well when:

Volumes justify a dedicated centre, but you want experienced hands to run it initially

Internal teams are stretched and cannot absorb the complexity of setup

You value a clear timetable for when ownership and control will shift

4. FLEXI: You own the entity, experts run the backbone

4. FLEXI: You own the entity, experts run the backbone

The final model is less about entry and more about how you operate once the entity exists.

As GCCs grow, many leadership teams find that running HR, payroll, accounting, compliance, vendor management, and facility operations consumes significant bandwidth that could be better spent on value creation and innovation. That is where a FLEXI model fits.

Under FLEXI, you retain ownership of the entity and strategic direction. A specialist partner like OBOX runs the “busy but essential” backbone:

Payroll and statutory filings

HR administration across the employee lifecycle

Accounting, Compliance and Controllership support

Asset tracking and workplace operations

Vendor management and documentation for audits

In effect, FLEXI creates a leaner GCC. You protect governance and culture, while shifting day to day administrative load to a team that does this at scale. Enterprises that have moved from EOR or BOT into a captive GCC often choose FLEXI to keep operations efficient without adding overhead functions internally.

The pattern behind strong India journeys

The pattern behind strong India journeys

If you look across case studies and market reports, a clear pattern emerges. High performing companies usually:

Start lean and fast

They use EOR or a light GaaS construct to get an initial team live quickly and compliantly.

Learn and stabilise

They observe how India performs on quality, leadership, culture, and cost. They refine which functions belong here and how the centre connects to global teams.

Move into ownership once confidence is earned

When data and experience support it, they convert into a GCC model, sometimes through BOT, sometimes by evolving from GaaS. They often keep operations flexible through a FLEXI style backbone.

Invest in higher-value work over time

As the centre matures, they shift from purely operational work into analytics, AI, product, and cross-functional roles that influence core strategy.

The OBOX point of view

The OBOX point of view

OBOX sits across the full stack of models that serious enterprises now expect in India: EOR, GaaS, BOT, and FLEXI.

The way we look at it is simple.

Your engagement model is not a legal arrangement. It is a design choice about how you build capability in India over time.

If you need a light footprint to begin, EOR lets you hire and learn without overcommitting.

If you are ready for a centre that feels like an in house GCC, GaaS can compress setup time while keeping you in control of outcomes.

If your board wants a clear road to full ownership, BOT can provide that structure.

If your existing GCC needs to run leaner, FLEXI allows you to hold on to strategy while delegating operations.

Whichever path you choose, the aim should be the same: build an India presence that is compliant, culturally aligned, and capable of contributing to your global agenda for many years.

Next step: Turn options into a concrete pathway

Next step: Turn options into a concrete pathway

Every India story begins with a model decision, but it should not end there. The most successful firms treat the model as a living choice that can evolve as they grow.

Explore OBOX’s engagement models in more detail here: www.oboxhr.com/Engagement_Model

Because the question is no longer “Should we build in India?”

It is “How fast – and how well – can we build it?”