Over forty years ago, IBM set up an experiment. They installed terminals at five of their employees’ homes to understand work-from-home. Soon enough, it freed 58 million square feet and delivered $2 billion in savingsBy 2009, 40% of IBMers across the globe were working from their homes. In 2017, IBM reversed this strategy — it began calling back thousands of its remote workers in the US to work from the office “shoulder to shoulder”. Not just IBM. Marissa Mayer famously brought back remote workers at Yahoo in 2013. Bank of America did so in 2014.

India has been the leading technology sourcing destination of the world, creating a fertile soil for Global Capability Centers (GCCs). However, most of these centres operate out of tier 1 cities, which is home to only 35% of the Indian population. Companies have been hesitant to set up offices beyond these cities due to unavailability of top-notch infrastructure such as uninterrupted electricity, high-speed internet and absence of an ecosystem for collaboration and innovation.