Hi {{firstname|everyone}},
For years, when firms thought about setting up a GCC in India, the conversation began and ended with Bengaluru. But over the last few years, those conversations have changed.
I speak to finance leaders and partners who are exhausted by attrition that never quite settles, teams that require constant retraining, and an ever-inflating wage bill, making it harder to build continuity and long-term capability within their GCCs.
The original promise of a direct-ownership global business model was stability and scale. In many metro hubs, firms are now managing churn and inflation instead of building maturity.
This is why Tamil Nadu is quietly entering the discussion in a serious way.
While metro GCC hubs such as Bengaluru and Mumbai often see annual attrition between 20 to 30%, while Tier-2 cities such as Coimbatore and Madurai typically report 12 to 18% attrition in comparable roles.
Let me break down why this matters in practical terms.
1. Retention as a Competitive Advantage
One of the biggest hidden costs in metro GCCs is turnover.
In fact, replacing a mid-level finance or operations professional typically costs 30 to 50% of annual salary, once recruitment fees, training time, and productivity loss are factored in.
Every time a trained team member leaves, you are retraining your team and stuck re-explaining your reviews. Over time, that churn prevents offshore teams from moving beyond task execution into genuine process ownership.
Tamil Nadu offers a more stable talent base, particularly in cities like Chennai and Coimbatore (which is home to our own AI Innovation Centre 🙂), where finance and accounting roles are not competing directly with every global technology firm in the ecosystem.
If you are building a finance GCC here, you need to approach it deliberately:
Design clear career pathways within your GCC so team members see progression without needing to change employers.
Invest in structured domain training early so knowledge compounds rather than resets every twelve months.
Move experienced hires into team lead and quality roles quickly to build internal capability rather than relying on constant lateral recruitment.
In practice, lower attrition allows your offshore team to mature into a knowledge centre instead of remaining a processing unit.
2. Talent Depth You Can Build On
Tamil Nadu has a long-standing culture of professional and technical education, with universities and training institutions producing a steady stream of graduates who are academically equipped with structured problem solving.
To go by the numbers, Tamil Nadu produces over 500,000 graduates annually, with a significant share in commerce, finance, business management, engineering, and analytics disciplines.
What this means for finance GCCs is that you are not building from zero.
You are hiring individuals who already understand accounting fundamentals, compliance frameworks, and financial reporting logic. However, tapping into this pipeline requires more than posting job ads.
Build relationships with commerce colleges and professional coaching institutes to create early talent funnels.
Offer structured articleship-style training within your GCC so recruits deepen domain knowledge while delivering real work.
Align internal training modules with UK, US, or international accounting standards if you serve global clients.
When you align your GCC with the local education ecosystem, you create a renewable source of technically capable professionals rather than competing endlessly in the open market.
3. A Mature Infrastructure That Lets You Scale
There was a time when firms hesitated to look beyond Tier 1 hubs because of infrastructure concerns. Connectivity, office space quality, and ecosystem maturity were real questions.
Today, cities across Tamil Nadu offer stable power supply, strong internet backbone, modern commercial real estate, and established service industries.
Operating costs in Tier-2 cities in Tamil Nadu can be 20 to 30% lower than equivalent operations in Tier-1 metro hubs, across real estate and support services.
The difference is that they have grown without the same saturation pressure seen in larger metro hubs, meaning you can scale and support teams without resetting your entire cost base every two years.
Operationally, this gives firms breathing room.
Secure office space in established business districts early to lock in cost predictability and avoid future escalation cycles.
Build delivery hubs in cities where commute times are reasonable, as this directly affects retention and productivity.
Integrate robust data security and compliance infrastructure from day one to align with international client expectations.
Capture Tamil Nadu’s Potential with Samera
What I find most interesting is that Tamil Nadu is not aggressively marketing itself as the next big GCC capital. It is evolving into it quietly.
If your current metro-based GCC feels stuck in perpetual hiring mode, or if wage pressure is eroding the very efficiency you set out to build, it may be time to reassess location strategy.
Our team at Samera understands the education ecosystem, hiring dynamics, and operational realities on the ground. More importantly, we design GCCs so they evolve from execution centres into capability hubs.
You can learn more about how we build and operate finance GCCs here:
Cheers,
Arun