Compliance Checklist for Setting Up a GCC in India

Whether employees will be hired under the parent organization's own new entity or under an interim employer-of-record arrangement (common in BOT setups) needs to be resolved before offers go out, since it directly affects the offer letter, statutory benefits structure, and payroll provider. Making offers before this is settled risks having to re-paper employment terms shortly after people join, which creates avoidable early friction.

Provident Fund, ESI (where applicable), professional tax, and labour welfare fund registrations typically need to be in place before the first payroll cycle runs. These registrations can take longer than expected depending on the state, so initiating them as soon as the entity is registered — rather than waiting until the first hires are close to joining — avoids a last-minute compliance scramble.

Offer letters, employment contracts, and onboarding documentation need to reflect local labour law requirements, which often differ meaningfully from the parent organization's home-market templates. Localizing these documents once, properly, before the first hiring wave avoids inconsistent or non-compliant paperwork across early hires — a common source of avoidable legal exposure.

GCCs handling data on behalf of a parent organization headquartered elsewhere need to account for India's data protection requirements alongside any cross-border data transfer obligations tied to the parent organization's home jurisdiction. This affects not just IT policy but hiring for specific roles — data privacy and governance positions are increasingly part of a GCC's early hiring plan for exactly this reason.

Statutory requirements evolve, and a compliance framework built at launch needs periodic review as the centre scales headcount and, potentially, adds locations. Building a recurring compliance review into the centre's operating cadence — rather than treating it as a box checked once during setup — reduces the risk of drift as the organization grows.