The captive model: your centre, your entity, your team, from day one
A captive Global Capability Centre is the full-ownership model. Your Indian entity, your employees on your payroll, your processes and intellectual property under your control from the first hire. It is the model the Fortune 500 built their India presence on, and the right choice when India is core to your long-term plans.
Full ownership does not mean going it alone. We handle everything around you: incorporation, hiring, workspace, IT assets, payroll, and every statutory obligation, so you own the centre without having to become an expert in Indian regulation.
When to choose captive
Choose captive when India is strategy, not experiment
A captive centre is the right model when most of these are true:
India is part of your five-year plan, not a test.
You are building a permanent capability, and you want the economics of ownership rather than a per-employee fee that grows with headcount.
Control matters.
Your work involves intellectual property, regulated data, or processes you are not willing to run through anyone else's entity, even temporarily.
You are ready to own an Indian entity.
You accept that ownership comes with statutory obligations, and you want those obligations managed by professionals rather than avoided.
You are building at meaningful scale.
Whether the centre is 20 people or 2,000, ownership economics improve as it grows.
If speed matters more than ownership right now, start with our Employer of Record (EOR) model and graduate later. If you want ownership eventually but not the early-stage risk, look at Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT). Many captive centres begin as one of the two.
What ATG handles
You own the centre. We build and run everything around it
A captive engagement runs through four stages. At every one of them, the work is done and signed off by our Chartered Accountant-led team, with a single named point of contact accountable to you.
- 01
Structure and incorporate
We design the entity structure with your global tax position in mind, then incorporate your Indian company: name approval, incorporation filings, statutory registrations, bank accounts, and the compliance framework your entity needs before it hires anyone. You get a clean, correctly structured entity, not one you have to fix later.
- 02
Build the foundations
Workspace acquisition in the city your talent strategy points to, IT asset procurement, and the financial groundwork: budgeting, financial modelling, internal processes and controls. We recommend the right city for your function, talent needs, and budget, whether that is Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai, NCR, or beyond.
- 03
Hire your team
Talent acquisition run against your role definitions and your bar. Employment contracts, statutory enrolments, payroll setup, and onboarding are all handled correctly from hire one, because unwinding employment mistakes in India is far more expensive than avoiding them.
- 04
Operate and keep you compliant
Once the centre is live, we run the operational spine: bookkeeping and accounting, payroll, tax filings, secretarial and legal compliance, and financial reporting to your group standards, including US GAAP and IFRS where needed. You see the status of every obligation; nothing is filed late, and nothing is invisible.
One partner, one point of accountability, from incorporation to your monthly board pack.
See the full entity setup processTimeline
What a realistic timeline looks like
Anyone who quotes you a fixed number of days for a captive setup before understanding your structure is guessing. The honest answer: incorporation and registrations move at the pace of Indian regulatory processing, workspace depends on your city and scale, and hiring depends on the roles you need. The stages above overlap; we begin hiring groundwork and workspace search while incorporation is in process, so the calendar is compressed wherever the rules allow.
In your first consultation we will map your specific timeline, stage by stage, against your target start date, and tell you plainly which parts are fast, which parts are fixed, and which parts depend on decisions only you can make.
Risks, named and absorbed
What usually goes wrong with captives, and why it will not here
The captive model concentrates ownership with you, so it deserves a straight answer about risk.
How we handle every India riskWe will get compliance wrong and pay penalties.
Indian statutory obligations are numerous and deadline-driven. Our Chartered Accountant-led team manages the full compliance calendar for your entity, and you see its live status. Compliance is not a service we offer; it is the profession our founders are regulated in.
Setup will drag on for months longer than promised.
Delays usually come from sequencing mistakes: waiting for one step to finish before starting the next. We run incorporation, workspace, and hiring groundwork in parallel wherever regulation allows, and give you a stage-by-stage plan with owners and dates.
We will hire the wrong people, or lose the ones we hire.
Hiring in India at distance is where captives most often stumble. We run recruitment against your bar, structure compensation to the local market, and set up the employment fundamentals that reduce early attrition.
We will be managing a dozen vendors from another continent.
You will not. Incorporation, workspace, IT, payroll, compliance, and advisory all sit with one partner, under one named point of contact, with defined response times and working-hour overlap with US, UK, and European time zones.
FAQ
Common questions about the captive model
What legal form does a captive GCC usually take in India?
Most captives are set up as a private limited company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the foreign parent. The right structure depends on your group's tax position and long-term plans, which is why we design the structure before we incorporate anything.
Do we need people on the ground in India to run a captive?
Not at the start. Statutory requirements, such as resident directorship, have defined solutions, and our team runs day-to-day operations, compliance, and reporting. Most clients appoint their own India leadership as the centre grows.
Can we start smaller and become a captive later?
Yes. Hiring your first employees under Employer of Record (EOR), or entering through Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT), are both proven paths to a captive. We structure early-stage engagements so the transition is a planned step, not a restart.
What does ATG's role look like after the centre is live?
As much or as little as you want. Some clients keep us running the full operational spine: accounting, payroll, compliance, secretarial, and reporting. Others take functions in-house over time and retain us for compliance and advisory. Your entity, your people, your choice; there is no lock-in built into the model.
Ready to talk about your centre in India?
Tell us where you are in your thinking. We respond within one business day and work across US, UK, and European time zones.