Executive summary
- A new Global Capability Centre (GCC) in India needs business software from its first hire: mail, accounts, HR and payroll, then tools to run delivery for the parent and report on it.
- Buying one tool per function is the default, and it leaves the centre with several vendors, several sign-ins and month-end MIS stitched together in spreadsheets.
- The alternative is one business operating system. On Zoho, eight apps and Zia cover the starter stack, and the centre deals with two technology vendors: Zoho for the software and Straits Partners to design, implement and run it.
- Start with four apps, add three as the centre takes on work, and finish with MIS that reads across all of them.
The problem with collecting tools
A GCC is usually set up under time pressure. The first finance lead picks an accounting package, HR picks a payroll provider, the delivery head brings a project tool, and someone sets up a help desk for internal requests. Each decision is defensible. The result is not: separate contracts and renewals, staff who sign in to several systems, integrations that break quietly, and a parent company that waits for month-end reports built by hand.
The stack, layer by layer
Layer 1: Workplace
Zoho Workplace is the foundation every employee uses. Zoho lists Mail, Cliq for team chat, Meeting for conferencing, WorkDrive for files and Writer, Sheet and Show for documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
Layer 2: Finance and people
- Zoho Books keeps the books of account for the Indian entity. See Zoho Books.
- Zoho People holds employee records, attendance and leave. See Zoho People.
- Zoho Payroll runs payroll. Zoho states that it covers PF, ESI, LWF, PT and income tax across Indian states, with statutory reports, tax forms and payslips employees can download.
Layer 3: Run the centre
- Zoho Projects plans and tracks the work the centre delivers for the parent. Zoho lists task lists, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, timesheets and issue tracking.
- Zoho Desk handles internal service requests, from IT to HR to facilities. Zoho lists multichannel ticketing, SLAs with automated escalations and Zia to draft responses.
- Zoho CRM keeps relationships with the parent’s business units, partners and vendors in one place. See Zoho CRM.
Layer 4: Insight and MIS with Zia
Zoho Analytics brings the data from the layers below into dashboards for the centre head and the parent. Zoho states that you can ask Zia questions in plain English, get visualisation recommendations and use forecasting and what-if models trained on your own data. This is where a single platform pays off: the MIS reads from apps that already share users and data, rather than from exports.
Start lean, then scale
| Move | Apps | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Start | Workplace, Books, People, Payroll | The entity can email, account, hire and pay from day one |
| 2. Operate | Projects, Desk, CRM | Delivery, internal service and stakeholders run in one place |
| 3. Scale | Analytics with Zia, Creator | MIS across the stack and custom apps for processes Zoho does not cover |
Licensing can follow the same path. Zoho One, which Zoho describes as 45+ apps priced per employee, often suits a centre once most staff use several apps; before that, individual app licences may cost less. We compare both for your headcount plan.
What two vendors means in practice
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Who supplies the software? | Zoho, under Zoho’s licence terms, billed by Zoho |
| Who designs, implements and integrates it? | Straits Partners |
| Who do you call when something does not work? | Straits Partners, under an annual maintenance agreement |
| What is outside the stack? | Hardware, connectivity, office infrastructure and your engineering toolchain |
How to start
Tell us where your centre is today: a plan on paper, the first hires, or a running team with too many tools. We come back with a stack design and a sequence. Email connect@straitspartners.co, use the requirement finder, or read about our GCC tech stack service.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Global Capability Centre?
A Global Capability Centre (GCC) is a unit a company sets up in another country, often India, to run functions such as technology, finance, operations or analytics for the parent group.
What is the minimum tech stack to open a GCC in India?
For business software, start with mail and collaboration, accounting, HR records and statutory payroll. On Zoho that is Workplace, Books, People and Payroll. Add Projects, Desk, CRM and Analytics as the centre takes on work.
Why use one platform instead of a separate tool for each function?
Fewer contracts, one sign-in for staff, data that already sits together and one partner accountable for the result. The trade-off is that you accept Zoho's way of doing some things rather than choosing each tool separately.
How does Zia help with MIS?
Zoho states that in Zoho Analytics you can ask Zia questions in plain English, get visualisation suggestions, and use forecasting and what-if models trained on your own data. We set up the data and dashboards so those answers are reliable.
What sits outside this stack?
Laptops, networks and office infrastructure, cloud hosting for any products you build, and your engineering toolchain. This stack covers the business software that runs the centre.