Your outsourcing vendor missed three deadlines this quarter. They blame "resource constraints" and "shifting requirements." You're frustrated, but you renew the contract. Meanwhile, your India GCC misses one deadline, and suddenly there's an emergency board review questioning the entire centre's viability.
Sound familiar?
This is the accountability paradox—and it's quietly sabotaging GCC strategies across the globe.
The Double Standard Nobody Talks About
Here's what I've observed working with companies setting up capability centres in India: organisations accept mediocrity from external vendors that they would never tolerate from their own teams.
When a vendor delivers subpar work, we call it a "partnership challenge." When a GCC does the same, we call it a "strategic failure."
The data tells the story. According to recent industry analysis:
- Global vendors typically operate at 80-85% on-time delivery in managed service contracts
- GCCs, even at 12-18 months of maturity, are expected to deliver 95%+ on-time delivery
- Vendor SLA breaches average 6-8% annually, yet contract renewals remain above 90% industry-wide
- GCCs, by contrast, face escalations for minor deviations due to internal visibility and ownership
India now hosts over 1,700 GCCs employing more than 1.9 million professionals (NASSCOM, 2024). Yet a 2023 Everest Group survey found that 68% of global leaders admit applying stricter performance expectations to GCCs than to vendors, whilst 54% acknowledge underinvesting in GCC leadership development relative to vendor governance budgets.
68% of global leaders admit applying stricter performance expectations to GCCs than to vendors (Everest Group, 2023).
The pattern is consistent: centres are typically given 18-24 months to prove themselves, whilst vendor relationships often continue for years despite consistent underperformance. The GCC operates under a microscope; the vendor operates under a service-level agreement with built-in escape clauses.
Why This Happens: The Psychology of Ownership
The accountability gap isn't about malice. It's about psychology.
With vendors, we expect imperfection. We've already externalised the risk. When they fail, it's their problem—and we have a contract to point to. We can threaten to switch providers (even though we rarely do). There's emotional distance.
With GCCs, we expect excellence. We've invested capital and reputation. When they stumble, it feels personal. These are our people, our investment, our strategic bet. The board knows about it. Leadership careers are attached to it. There's nowhere to hide.
This creates a strange incentive structure: the more you care about something, the less patience you have for its growing pains.
The Three Manifestations of the Paradox
1. The Measurement Trap
Your vendor reports 82% on-time delivery in their quarterly business review. You accept this as reasonable.
Your GCC reports 89% on-time delivery. You question why it's not 95%.
The GCC is performing better, yet it faces more scrutiny. Why? Because you're measuring it differently. The vendor is measured against contractual minimums. The GCC is measured against idealised expectations.
I've seen GCC leaders produce monthly performance reports that would make a vendor blanch—granular tracking of every initiative, every metric, every deviation. Meanwhile, vendor quarterly business reviews gloss over failures with vague commitments to "process improvement."
2. The Authority Gap
When a vendor needs to change scope or timeline, they invoke change management processes that add weeks and costs. You grudgingly accept this because "that's how vendors work."
When your GCC needs the same flexibility, they're told to "be more agile" or "work it out." The very autonomy you'd grant an external partner—the ability to push back, renegotiate, or escalate—is denied to your internal team.
Vendors benefit from:
- Formal SLAs with defined tolerance bands
- Structured change control processes
- Clear escalation paths and costed flexibility
GCCs often operate without equivalent frameworks, resulting in:
- Ad hoc escalations
- Unrealistic timelines
- Poorly defined scopes
- Limited ability to negotiate
Here's the uncomfortable truth: you give vendors more permission to fail than you give your own people.
3. The Investment Paradox
Enterprises spend substantial sums annually on vendor management—contract negotiations, relationship managers, quarterly governance meetings, dispute resolution.
Yet they hesitate to invest equivalent resources in GCC leadership development, capability building, or change management.
Vendors are allowed to have learning curves. GCCs are expected to be perfect from day one.
The Cost of the Double Standard
This paradox isn't just unfair—it's expensive.
First, it drives conservative behaviour and kills innovation.
When GCC leaders know they'll be punished for any visible failure, they stop taking risks. They stick to safe, incremental work. Innovation dies because experimentation requires permission to fail.
I recently spoke with a GCC head in Bangalore who told me: "I stopped proposing bold ideas after the first one didn't work perfectly. Now I just deliver what's asked, exactly as specified. My vendor predecessor did that for years and got praised for reliability."
This is what happens when organisations create what can be called an "innovation penalty"—where mistakes are punished disproportionately, leading to risk aversion that directly impacts process optimisation, automation initiatives, and strategic transformation programmes.
GCCs with high autonomy deliver 3x more innovation initiatives annually than those operating under restrictive governance (Deloitte).
Second, it creates talent attrition.
Your best people didn't join the GCC to be micromanaged. They joined to build something meaningful. When they realise they have less autonomy than the external consultants sitting next to them, they leave.
Industry data shows that GCC leadership roles see average tenures of just 3.2 years (Organisation Capability Institute), with "lack of decision-making authority" consistently ranking among the top three reasons for departure. Research also indicates that GCC attrition rises by 12-18% when autonomy and psychological safety are low.
The irony? When they leave for competitors or start-ups, they suddenly have the freedom to fail, learn, and innovate. The capabilities you could have developed internally are now benefiting someone else.
Third, it undermines the GCC business case.
If your GCC needs to be perfect whilst your vendors are allowed to be "good enough," you're guaranteeing the GCC will look expensive. Perfect requires investment. Good enough is cheap.
When expected to be flawless without the time and investment provided to vendors, GCCs appear more expensive and less reliable—leading to flawed comparisons that undermine long-term strategy.
Breaking the Paradox: Five Practical Shifts
1. Equalise the Measurement Standards
Audit your vendor scorecards and your GCC dashboards. Are you measuring the same things? With the same tolerance for variance?
Create a single performance framework that applies to all delivery—internal and external. If 82% on-time delivery is acceptable from vendors, it's acceptable from your GCC initially. If you demand 95% from your GCC, demand it from everyone.
The goal isn't to lower standards—it's to apply them consistently.
2. Grant GCCs Vendor-Level Autonomy
Give your GCC leaders the same scope flexibility you give vendors. If a vendor can invoke change control for shifting requirements, your GCC should be able to negotiate timeline adjustments without triggering an existential crisis.
Enable your GCC to:
- Push back on scope creep
- Request timeline changes without stigma
- Escalate through structured mechanisms
- Operate with negotiated flexibility
Ask yourself: Do you accept scope changes from your vendor? If yes, accept it from your Bangalore team as well.
3. Budget for Learning Curves
New GCCs need 18-24 months to find their rhythm. Not because Indian teams are slow learners, but because any new operational model needs time to mature.
According to KPMG and NASSCOM analyses, GCCs typically require this stabilisation period for workflows, operating models, and cultural alignment. By contrast, vendor partnerships reach maturity only after 3-5 years—yet aren't scrutinised with the same intensity during ramp-up.
Stop comparing a 12-month-old GCC to a vendor relationship that's had five years to optimise. Either compare them at equivalent maturity, or accept that your GCC's "learning investment" is the price of long-term capability building.
Consider institutionalising this in your governance model:
- Define clear stabilisation periods
- Budget for experimentation
- Create safe space for early-stage failures
4. Implement a Learning Budget
One innovative approach: allocate 5-8% of GCC capacity explicitly for trying new approaches, with the understanding that some will fail.
Companies implementing learning budgets report 15-25% improvement in process innovation and 20% uplift in employee engagement.
The result? Rather than innovation dying in the shadow of perfectionism, it flourishes in an environment where controlled experimentation is valued.
5. Make the Comparison Explicit
In your next leadership review, put your vendor performance data and your GCC performance data side by side. Same metrics, same format, same time period.
Then ask the room: "Based purely on performance, which team would you invest more in?"
I've done this exercise with several leadership teams. Each time, the data shows the GCC outperforming vendors—yet the emotional response still favours the vendors. Making the paradox visible is the first step to breaking it.
The Real Question
The accountability paradox exists because we've confused ownership with perfection.
Yes, your GCC is yours. You own the outcomes. But ownership doesn't mean demanding flawless execution from day one whilst tolerating mediocrity from external partners.
If anything, the logic should run the opposite direction: invest more patience, more development, and more learning space in the assets you own. That's how you build long-term capability.
Your vendors will never care about your success as much as your GCC will. But only if you give your GCC the room to grow into that potential.
What This Means for You
If you're a CTO or operations leader managing a GCC, ask yourself:
- Do we hold our India team to higher standards than our vendors?
- Are we measuring them the same way?
- Do they have the autonomy to push back when requirements shift?
- Are we investing in their learning curve, or expecting immediate perfection?
The companies getting GCC strategy right aren't the ones demanding perfection. They're the ones creating environments where talented people can experiment, fail safely, and ultimately build capabilities that no vendor ever could.
A mature, empowered GCC delivers capabilities no vendor can match:
- Institutional knowledge retention
- IP ownership and protection
- Mission-driven problem-solving
- Integrated enterprise transformation
- Sustainable cost advantages over time
Your GCC becomes:
- A centre of excellence
- A hub of innovation
- A strategic talent engine
- A long-term competitive differentiator
But only if leadership aligns expectations with reality and invests in GCC autonomy and maturity.
Conclusion
The accountability paradox isn't a problem to solve. It's a mirror to hold up.
What you see in that mirror will determine whether your GCC becomes a strategic asset or a cautionary tale.
Breaking the accountability paradox isn't just about fairness—it's about unlocking the strategic capability you've invested in. A well-nurtured GCC isn't a cost centre under constant scrutiny. It's your engine for innovation, differentiation, and next-generation delivery that no external vendor can replicate.
The question isn't whether your GCC can match vendor performance. It's whether you'll give it the space to surpass it.