The report notes that the city is home to a population of 3.8 million, a technology workforce exceeding 300,000 professionals, 137 engineering colleges, more than 30,000 STEM graduates annually, and over 75 GCCs as of 2026.
“Coimbatore has in many ways moved beyond the conventional definition of a second-tier city. The fact that some GCCs have scaled to over 1,000 employees demonstrates the potential to build and sustain larger mandates. The next phase is about replicating this success across the ecosystem, deepening engineering ownership and building globally relevant capabilities. With coordinated execution, the city could emerge as one of India’s most distinctive GCC destinations by 2032,” Manoj Marwah, Partner and GCC Markets Leader – EY India said.
The report lists 5R Framework or five complementary growth engines for Coimbatore’s GCC ecosystem.
Resilience, attracting Metro+1 expansion mandates from enterprises seeking diversification beyond major GCC hubs; Replicate, leveraging existing GCC success stories to attract competitors, suppliers and industry peers; Regionalize, enabling South Indian enterprises to establish internal capability centers; Role-led, building specialization in engineering, industrial technology and innovation-led capabilities; and Ramp-up, helping existing GCCs expand mandates, talent and global responsibilities, it added.
“As global enterprises increasingly seek talent, resilience and specialized capabilities beyond traditional metro locations, Coimbatore is well placed to play a larger role in India’s GCC story. Our ambition is not just to attract more GCCs, but to help create a globally competitive ecosystem that delivers long-term economic value for the city. The 5R framework outlined in this report provides a practical roadmap to that end,” V Noushad, Chairman CII Coimbatore Zone and Managing Director, Walkaroo International Pvt Ltd said.
The report notes that many current centers remain in the early stages of their growth journey and have the potential to evolve from execution-focused operations into global engineering centers, centers of excellence, product ownership teams and strategic innovation hubs.
It identifies several structural strengths that could support Coimbatore in these ambitions, including workforce stability, lower attrition levels compared with larger metro locations, strong academic institutions, competitive Grade A office rentals and supportive government policies, such as Tamil Nadu’s dedicated payroll-linked GCC incentive framework, and innovation enablers such as SNS iHub.
