GCC Entry Advisory

Who This Is For

Global Capability Centres committing to Bangalore as their India headquarters — whether as a new market entrant or as an organisation consolidating its India operations onto a single anchor campus.

The GCC entry decision is not a real estate transaction. It is a strategic positioning exercise: the floor plate chosen in 2026 sets the physical parameters of operations through 2035 and beyond. The right advisory for this decision is not a broker optimising for commission; it is an advisor whose interest is aligned with the occupier’s long-horizon outcome.

What We Do

Strategic brief development. We begin with the organisation — its functional remit, headcount trajectory, ESG commitments, parent-company reporting requirements, and the internal stakeholders who will need to approve the outcome. The brief is the document that drives everything else; underspecification here causes delays and suboptimal outcomes throughout.

Submarket selection. Bangalore has no single commercial centre. We advise on which of the city’s primary submarkets — Outer Ring Road–Sarjapur, Whitefield, North Bangalore, CBD — fits the specific functional and talent profile of the GCC. This is an analytical exercise, not a preference: we document the reasoning and the trade-offs.

Building shortlist and inspection. From the submarket decision, we develop a shortlist of six to eight buildings meeting the brief criteria. Physical inspection, building management assessment, and existing tenant reference checks.

Heads of terms negotiation. We negotiate on the occupier’s behalf. Rent, escalation structure, fit-out period, security deposit, lock-in and exit provisions, ROFR on adjacent floors, landlord capital contribution. We have visibility of current market terms; we know what is achievable.

Lease advisory. We coordinate with the occupier’s legal team on the lease documentation. We do not practise law; we advise on the commercial context of the provisions the lawyers are reviewing.

Fit-out handover. On lease execution, we prepare a handover brief for the fit-out phase — the commercial intelligence on the building, the market context for contractor selection, and the timeline benchmarks.

How It Differs from Conventional Brokerage

A conventional broker is paid by both the operator and the occupier, or by the operator alone. Their incentive is to close a transaction; the specific building is secondary to the commission.

Shilden’s fee is paid by the operator when a transaction closes. Clients pay nothing. The model aligns our recommendation with the occupier’s outcome: we recommend the right building for the GCC’s strategic brief, not the building where we earn the highest commission.

We are also deliberately small. Every GCC entry engagement is partner-led from brief to handover. We do not assign junior analysts to the site inspection and partners to the pitch.

The building chosen at entry becomes the ceiling on everything that follows — the talent it can attract, the culture it can sustain, the operations it can house. Getting the first decision right is the most leveraged intervention available to a GCC setting up in Bangalore.