Running ABM in India: Map the Reporting Line, Not the Office

India is the market where the standard account-based model is most likely to be structurally wrong rather than just badly executed. The method assumes an account is a company, that the company has a budget, and that the people in the building can spend it. For a large part of the Indian technology buying population, none of those three is reliably true.

What is a global capability centre, and why does it change the account?

A global capability centre, or GCC, is an offshore arm a multinational runs for engineering, operations or shared services, staffed in India and reporting into a parent in another country. It is not a subsidiary selling into a local market and it is usually not a profit centre.

That matters because account-based marketing targets accounts that can buy. A GCC frequently holds the users, the technical evaluation and the day to day problem, while the budget and the signature sit with a parent in the United States or Europe.

So who should we actually be targeting?

Both, in one account plan rather than two. Treating the GCC as the account produces engaged technical champions who cannot sign. Treating the parent as the account produces a signature with no internal advocate and a much lower win rate.

The practical move is to map the reporting line before writing a single message. Find who the GCC lead reports to, in which country, and whether the budget for your category sits there or with a global function.

How does this change account list sizing?

It usually shrinks the list and raises the value of each entry. A hundred Indian offices might resolve to thirty genuine buying units once you have followed the reporting lines, and several of those will be reachable through a parent you are already working in another market.

That is a better list than the one you started with. It also means your India programme and your North America or Europe programme are frequently the same programme, which is a coverage saving rather than a new cost.

What does the DPDP Act require of an outbound programme?

Notice before or with the request for personal data, and the ability to prove you gave it. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 requires a Data Fiduciary to accompany or precede a request for personal data with a notice describing the data and the purpose of processing (Source: MeitY, Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023).

The burden is the part that catches outbound programmes. Where consent is the basis for processing, the Data Fiduciary is obliged to prove both that notice was given and that consent was given in accordance with the Act (Source: MeitY, Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023).

Why does the burden of proof matter more than the consent rule?

Because most account-based programmes build lists from third party enrichment, and enrichment does not come with a notice trail. If you cannot show where a contact record came from and what the person was told, you cannot discharge an obligation that sits on you rather than on your data vendor.

Enforcement is real rather than theoretical. The Data Protection Board of India is established as an independent adjudicatory authority able to inquire into non-compliance and impose monetary penalties (Source: MeitY, Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023).

Does the DPDP Act apply if the decision maker is overseas?

It applies to the personal data of the people in India regardless of where the person reading your proposal sits. A two country account plan does not give you one compliance posture.

Keep the record per jurisdiction from the first touch. Retrofitting a notice trail after a programme is running is considerably harder than building it in, and the obligation does not soften because the buying decision happened elsewhere.

What should a first India programme look like?

Narrow. Pick the accounts where you already have a relationship in the parent market, follow the reporting line into the GCC, and run the two as one coordinated motion with a single account owner.

That gives you a warm path, a technical champion and a budget holder in the same plan. Starting instead with a cold list of Indian offices gives you conversations that cannot convert, which reads as a market problem and is actually a mapping problem.

How does this compare with the rest of the region?

India is the outlier on where authority sits. Singapore concentrates regional buying authority in one account, Hong Kong rewards referral led entry, Japan runs long consensus evaluations, and Australia and New Zealand let you reach the decision maker directly.

The detail is in running ABM in Japan and Singapore, running ABM in Hong Kong and running ABM in Australia and New Zealand.

How does David and Goliath run India programmes?

We map the reporting line before the account list is signed off, and we will tell you when your India opportunity is really a North America opportunity with an Indian evaluation team attached. That answer costs us scope and saves you a quarter.

The thresholds we apply before taking on any account-based programme are on the account-based marketing pillar, and the ABM fit check is the four question version.