What India’s clout in white-collar work means for the world

India HAS long been seen as the world’s “back office”. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), an IT firm now worth $170bn, undertook its first project for an American client in 1973, reworking the accounting software of a hospital in Detroit. The rise of “global capability centres”, where multinational companies carry out complex tasks, from design to research, is increasingly making that view out of date. The question is whether GCCs will themselves be superseded, too, as India creates some world-beating global companies of its own.