6 GCC Case Studies: Real-World Examples of How Offshore Teams Became Strategic Powerhouses

Across some of the world’s largest enterprises, offshore teams that were initially set up with a narrow brief have now become impossible to operate without. Centers that began as support functions in India are now running AI platforms, owning checkout systems, and building the infrastructure their parent companies depend on to compete. 

This didn’t happen because someone decided, on day one, to hand over the keys. It happened because the offshore team’s work got noticed and the mandate expanded to match. The six case studies below trace that same arc across very different companies and starting points, including GCCs that Systems Plus has built and operated directly.

1. Lowe’s India: The Same Team. A Different Mandate. 

Prior to 2014, the US home improvement market was undergoing a massive shift toward e-commerce, digital retail, and omnichannel shopping. Lowe’s, a US home improvement retailer with 1,700+ stores, set up its India offshore team in 2014 for expense leverage, which is how most centers begin. When the mandate changed, the team or the infrastructure did not change. What changed was what the center was asked to own.  

With over 4,000+ associates, it now powers innovations across omnichannel retail, AI/ML, enterprise architecture, supply chain, merchandising, marketing, finance, and customer experience. The center became the company’s AI foundry, with business and technology teams co-located and operating with full autonomy.  

The supply chain outcome is the clearest evidence of what autonomy produces: simulations that previously required weeks now take one hour, built and run entirely from Bengaluru. Lowe’s has built an AI framework across three domains including consumer-facing AI, tools for in-store associates, and enterprise productivity, with the India foundry routing each query to the best-tuned model for the task. 50+ production-grade AI models are in operation, serving consumers at scale. 

Lowe’s Catalyze also won the NASSCOM GCC Conclave 2023 award for Excellence in Future Value Proposition. 

2. Carter’s Inc.: The Evolution from Fragmented Vendors to a Digital Powerhouse 

As a global leader in children’s apparel, Carter’s Inc. recognized that scaling digital commerce required moving away from a fragmented, monolithic ecosystem. Originally, the brand’s Salesforce Commerce Cloud  storefront was managed across three separate technology partners. This siloed ownership created delivery bottlenecks, delayed critical platform updates, and limited technical agility. 

To regain control, Carter’s partnered with Systems Plus to pioneer a Unified GCC Delivery Model. Systems Plus consolidated operations into a single, highly accountable delivery pod and executed a complete architectural overhaul. The team migrated the storefront to a modern, headless, and composable architecture, seamlessly integrating tools like Contentful CMS, Algolia, CJ Affiliate, and passwordless authentication. 

What started as a technical consolidation rapidly matured into a core pillar of Carter’s global organization. In less than six months, the pod smoothly transitioned into a fully client-owned GCC, successfully bringing all talent, processes, and intellectual property entirely in-house. 

Key outcomes: 

• 3 vendors → 1 highly accountable unified GCC team 
• 0% attrition since inception 
• Knowledge transition in under 1 month 
• Full GCC transformation in under 6 months 
• ~55% more efficient cost structure 

Read the full case study to explore how Systems Plus consolidated Carter’s three vendors into one owned offshore team and rebuilt its commerce platform.

3. Vanguard: One of the World’s Largest Asset Manager Picks India for its Next Decade of Innovation 

Vanguard, with over $11.6 trillion in assets under management at the time, launched its offshore team in Hyderabad in November 2025. The 165,000 sq. ft. facility currently stands at around 500+ employees, and Vanguard expects the workforce to scale to over 2,300. 
 
Vanguard’s India office has been positioned as a long-term, integral part of its global operating model from the outset, with focus areas including AI/ML, data and analytics, cloud engineering, cybersecurity and others aligned directly with the firm’s digital priorities. 
 
That’s a decade of collaboration Vanguard is choosing to deepen, built on a technology ecosystem with the talent and ambition in India to match.  

4. DXL’s Global Capability Centre: From Setup to 8 Years of Sustained Value 

DXL, an omnichannel clothing retailer with 250+ stores, needed a technology capability that would grow with the business, not just a project team that would deliver a scope and exit. 

Systems Plus built and operated four dedicated GCC teams: Digital Commerce, Data Management, Marketing, and IT Operations. The offshore team operates as an embedded part of DXL’s technology organization with the same accountability structures, the same escalation paths, and the same investment in talent retention that an in-house team would carry. 

Key outcomes: 

• 25% reduction in burn rate 
• 5% increase in mobile app revenue through ADA compliance and feature innovation 
• 15% cost reduction through Zeta CDP, CRM, and Loyalty system implementation 
• <10% attrition sustained across the center 

Check out the full case study to explore how Systems Plus built and sustained an offshore team for 8 years driving digital commerce, data, and marketing innovation for DXL. 

5. Target India: 21 Years of Compounding 

Target faced intense competition from Amazon and needed to rapidly expand its e-commerce capabilities. However, significant technology and talent gaps constrained its transition from a traditional, brick-and-mortar retail chain to an omnichannel digital powerhouse. 

Target established its India center in 2005. Cut to today, Target employs 5,700+ professionals. Operating as an integrated headquarters, the Bengaluru centre combines technology, merchandising, supply chain, fulfilment, cybersecurity, digital, finance, HR, and other business capabilities to deliver value across Target’s entire retail ecosystem.  
 
The store design team handles approximately half of all new Target store designs and 80% of all store remodels globally, from engineers who have largely never set foot in a US Target store. It also owns enterprise checkout systems and guest order management.  

21 years of consistent investment in ownership and autonomy produced a center the parent company cannot operate without. That is not an outcome you plan for in year one. It is what happens when you build deliberately and hold the line. 

6. Major Lifestyle Retailer: How a Crisis Pod Became a Governed GCC 

For a major lifestyle retailer, an unstable Order Management System (OMS) during peak demand is an immediate threat to the bottom line.  

Systems Plus assembled a dedicated pod to identify and resolve the root causes such as workflow failures, integration gaps, and manual approval of bottlenecks. The offshore team introduced automation that cleared recurring stuck-order scenarios without human triage. Before the stabilization phase ended, the team institutionalized the engineering discipline with runbooks, escalation flows, and a train-the-trainer model for the operational rhythm. 

Once the client validated operational readiness, the battle-tested offshore team transitioned into a centralized, client-owned GCC through a seamless Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) framework, ensuring all institutional knowledge and playbooks remained in-house. 

Key outcomes: 

• Significant reduction in order backlogs and manual escalations 
• Zero separate hiring burden  
• Minimal attrition at handoff through overlap periods 
• Predictable operating costs extensible across brands and channels 
• Best practices embedded: runbooks, playbooks, automation — before handoff 

Explore the full case study on how Systems Plus transitioned the retailer into a fully governed offshore team using a Build-Operate-Transfer model.

Conclusion 

These real-world GCC stories redefine what’s possible. None of these teams set out to become the backbone of their enterprise. They were just asked to execute initially. Ownership, leadership, and platforms followed, because the work was good enough to earn them.  

For 39 years, Systems Plus has helped enterprises build, operate, and scale high-performing GCCs. If you’re looking to set up your own center or upgrade an existing one, connect with our experts for a consultation.