Start with the cost stack, not a per-seat headline.
A useful model has six layers. Compensation and benefits sit at the centre, but the first year also carries recruitment, workplace, technology, professional fees, knowledge transfer and duplicated leadership effort. If a budget ignores the overlap between the old operating model and the new one, it is probably optimistic.
People
Base pay, variable compensation, benefits, statutory contributions, recruitment, learning and the premium for scarce leadership roles.
Place
Seats, deposits, fit-out, managed-office premiums, connectivity, security, transport and the gap between planned and occupied capacity.
Platform
Devices, enterprise applications, licences, identity, cyber controls, data environments and cross-border support arrangements.
Governance
Entity maintenance, audit, tax, transfer pricing, payroll, legal support, insurance, internal controls and board oversight.
Transition
Travel, shadowing, documentation, parallel running, process redesign and the productivity dip while teams learn.
Contingency
Hiring slippage, notice buyouts, role-mix changes, currency movement, vendor extensions and unplanned control requirements.
Three planning envelopes
The ranges below are deliberately broad and intended for an early discussion. They assume a mixed professional workforce, a tier-one office market and a twelve-month build. Engineering-heavy, regulated or leadership-dense centres will sit differently.
| Illustrative centre | Year-one planning envelope | What moves it most |
|---|---|---|
| 50-person focused team | ₹14-22 crore | Leadership density, managed-office choice, recruitment fees and technology controls. |
| 150-person multi-function centre | ₹38-58 crore | Role mix, hiring curve, city, transition overlap and whether the entity is already ready. |
| 300-person scaled operation | ₹72-115 crore | Engineering share, facility strategy, security environment, management depth and ramp speed. |
These are editorial planning ranges, not market quotes. Use the cost estimator to change basic assumptions, then validate the result with current compensation, real-estate and professional-fee data.
Where budgets usually break
- Headcount is priced as an average while the first hires are disproportionately senior.
- The business case assumes full productivity from the hiring date.
- Global leadership and subject-matter experts are treated as “free” transition capacity.
- Workspace is sized for the end state too early, or too tightly for the hiring curve.
- Technology and data-control requirements are discovered after vendors have been appointed.
- Transfer-pricing logic is left to year-end compliance instead of being designed with the operating model.
A better way to present the business case
Show three views: the expected case, a slower hiring case and a higher-control case. Keep implementation cost separate from the recurring run-rate. Explain which costs disappear after transition and which grow with scale. Most importantly, connect the economics to value: faster product delivery, risk coverage, access to capability or improved operating resilience.