Scaling a European Fintech's India GCC from 0 to 80 Engineers in 6 Months

The Challenge

A rapidly growing European fintech had decided to open their first India GCC to accelerate product velocity and reduce operational costs. They had no existing India presence — no legal entity, no office, no HR processes, and no local vendor relationships.

Their core problems: - **Zero brand recognition** in the Indian talent market - **Aggressive 6-month target** to have 80 engineers contributing to production - **Specialized requirements** — the team needed engineers fluent in React, Node.js, Kafka, and AWS at mid-to-senior level - No internal HR team with India-market expertise

Failing to hit the 80-person milestone would delay their flagship product launch by over a year.

Our Approach

We engaged IILIKA GROUPS' GCC Enablement track, which gave us a single point of accountability across entity setup, office infrastructure, talent acquisition, and onboarding.

**Phase 1 — Foundation (Month 1–2)** - Partnered with legal counsel to fast-track Private Limited registration and compliances - Secured a 100-seat managed office in Pune with IT infrastructure ready for Day 1 - Built a custom employer brand kit targeted at the Pune-Mumbai tech corridor

**Phase 2 — Talent Acquisition (Month 2–5)** - Deployed a dedicated 4-person recruiting pod with our own ATS and screening workflows - Ran 3-stage technical evaluations (resume screen → async coding test → panel interview) - Maintained a live pipeline dashboard shared with the client's CTO weekly

**Phase 3 — Onboarding & Integration (Month 5–6)** - Ran structured onboarding bootcamps aligned to the client's internal tooling - Embedded an IILIKA delivery manager on-site for the first 90 days - Established KPIs and sprint integration protocols with the European HQ team