Know what the role costs before you open it.

Most GCC hiring plans are built on a comp band someone set last year and a guess about who's available. We give you the real number and the real shortlist of who could move, drawn from the same placement record behind 4,000+ placements. So you know whether to move now, and at what price.

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A warm-lit Indian city skyline at golden hour, read as a live market

Live benchmarks · By city

Comp studies run for GCCs

235

The Problem

You're pricing a role against a market you can't actually see.

The comp band on the requisition came from a survey that's twelve to eighteen months old, aggregated nationally, and blind to your sector. By the time you're in the market, it's already wrong. The good people read the number in the first thirty seconds and decide whether you're serious.

Availability is the harder blind spot. A role can look fillable on paper and have maybe nine people in the country who actually qualify, six of them settled, two unreachable. You only learn that after a quarter of an open req and a stalled search.

So the question that should come before the hire goes unanswered: is now the right time to move, and what does this person genuinely cost in Bengaluru, in your sector, this quarter. Getting it wrong costs you the candidate, the timeline, or the budget. Usually all three.

When we benchmark a role a client already has open, the band is often off by enough to lose the shortlist before the search begins.

From the Compensation Index, India GCCs.

Our Approach

Three reads. Before you commit.

Knowing the market is a calibration problem before it's a hiring one. We tell you the price, the supply, and the timing, then you decide whether to open the role at all.

01 · Price

What the role actually pays, this quarter

A comp read for the specific role, sector, and city, built from what comparable mandates closed at, not a national survey. Fixed, variable, and the parts of the package that move senior people. So your band wins the person you want instead of the one who'll settle.

02 · Supply

How many people could genuinely do this

A mapped count of who's qualified in your city and sector, with a read on how many are realistically movable. When the answer is nine people and two are reachable, you want to know that before you brief a search, not ten weeks in.

03 · Timing

The signal that says move now, or wait

Hiring activity, comp drift, and attrition in your sector right now, read against your plan. Sometimes the call is to move this quarter before a competitor does. Sometimes it's to hold ninety days while a band corrects. We tell you which, and why.

A Typical Engagement

How a market read comes together in three weeks.

Four phases. Most single-role reads land inside two to three weeks, a full plan across a function or a build runs a little longer and follows the same rhythm.

Phase 01

Days 1–3

Scope

The roles, the cities, the sector cut, and the decision you're trying to make. We agree what a useful answer looks like before we pull a single number.

Phase 02

Days 3–10

Benchmark

We build the comp read from our placement record and live market checks, then map the qualified universe. You get the price and the supply for each role, with the working shown.

Phase 03

Days 10–16

Read

A working session, not a slide drop. We walk you through where your band is off, where supply is thin, and what the timing signal says. Then we take your questions and pressure-test the plan.

Phase 04

Days 16–21

Decide

You leave with a clear call on each role: open now at this band, hold, or restructure. And if the search makes sense, we can pick it up the same week with the intelligence already in hand.

What This Changes

The numbers that move.

Aggregates across market reads we ran in 2024 to 2025. Not promises, what tends to happen when the price and the supply are known before the role opens.

Days

Not weeks, to turn around a single-role comp and availability read

Typical turnaround

235

Compensation-benchmarking studies run for GCC clients

Benchmarking engagements to date

82%

Offer-acceptance rate when the band is calibrated before the search begins

Offer-to-acceptance

Client Outcome

When the market read changed the plan.

See all case studies

A regional talent map marked with clusters

Case Study · BFSI · Bengaluru

Mandate

Comp + availability read · risk-tech leadership

"We were about to open roles on a hunch. The map told us where the talent actually was — and where it wasn't. We changed the plan."

Regional Head of Technology

Singapore bank GCC · Bengaluru

Read the full case study

Other Services

If this is part of a bigger problem.

A market read is most useful as the first move in a bigger plan. Most reads either fed or followed one of these.

Frequently Asked

Questions we get asked.

If you don't see what you're looking for, the form below is the fastest route. Most enquiries get a response within one working day.

How is your comp read different from a salary survey?

A salary survey aggregates self-reported numbers nationally and ages fast. Our read is built from what comparable mandates actually closed at in your city and sector, cross-checked against the live market this quarter. It's the number a real candidate is being paid now, not a median from last year.

Can you tell me if a role is even fillable before I open it?

Yes, that's the availability read. We map how many people in your city and sector genuinely qualify and how many are realistically movable. When the count is single digits, we say so, so you can decide whether to widen the brief, raise the band, or wait, before you commit a quarter to a search.

Do I have to run a search with you to get a market read?

No. The read is a standalone engagement and plenty of clients use it to brief their own team or another firm. If the read points to a search and you want us to run it, we can pick it up the same week with the intelligence already done. The two fit together, but neither requires the other.

How current is the data behind the read?

It draws on our live placement record and market checks run during the engagement, so the comp and supply picture is current to the quarter. Where a sector is moving fast, we flag the direction of travel as well as the number, so you're not acting on a figure that's about to shift.

What sectors and cities can you read?

Across the GCC hubs, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, the NCR, and the sectors we place into: technology and engineering, pharma and life sciences, BFSI, and ER&D. If your role sits in a thinner segment, we'll tell you how confident the read is before you rely on it.

How quickly will I have an answer?

A single-role comp and availability read typically lands in five working days from a clear brief. A plan across a whole function or a new centre takes two to three weeks. We'll confirm the timeline at scoping, before any work starts.

Start a Conversation

Tell us the role you're about to price.

Give us the role, the city, and the band you're working with. We'll come back with a read on whether it's right, even if we don't end up running anything.

Tell us what you need to know.

What are you trying to read?

Which city?

Which sector?

We'll only use this to come back to you. Privacy · DPDP

Thanks, we'll come back within one working day with a read on the role, regardless of fit.