India to lead AI-driven enterprise planning growth

Planview is focusing on India to drive its next phase of AI-powered enterprise planning, moving the country from a delivery hub to a global product and innovation center.

Matt Zilli, who became CEO earlier this year, stated that the company’s Bengaluru Capability and Innovation Centre now leads core product development, AI innovation, and customer outcomes worldwide. The center’s workforce has tripled in the past year.

From engineering base to global product ownership

During his first visit to India as CEO, Zilli explained that the country’s role has expanded beyond traditional engineering. “We’re no longer treating India as just a delivery center,” he said. “Our teams here build core product capabilities, drive AI innovation, and manage outcomes for global customers.”

The Bengaluru center, opened four years ago, now includes teams in product management, R&D, data science, cybersecurity, and customer success. Shalini Sankarshana, who also serves on the Nasscom Product Council, leads the facility. This growth reflects a trend where global software companies assign full product ownership to their India operations.

Zilli’s visit coincides with Planview’s investment in tools to help enterprises measure the business impact of AI and digital transformation. Many organizations find it difficult to link strategic investments with clear outcomes, resulting in wasted efforts and misallocated resources.

AI shifts focus from projects to business value

The company is building three key capabilities: an Outcome Graph that connects initiatives to measurable results, governance tools for executive visibility into portfolio risks, and AI-driven intelligence to predict execution risks early.

“Organizations are moving from an output mindset to an outcome mindset,” Zilli said. Success is no longer about how many projects were completed but whether those investments reduced costs, improved customer experience, or generated revenue.

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Financial services illustrate the challenge. Banks and institutions manage hundreds of initiatives—AI adoption, cloud migration, regulatory compliance, and cybersecurity—often without integrated oversight. Without clear visibility, these organizations may fail to see returns from large-scale digital programs.

AI can help close that gap. By identifying risks, resource conflicts, and bottlenecks early, enterprises can adjust strategies before problems grow. Zilli believes governance will become the main challenge of enterprise AI adoption, as companies launch initiatives faster than they can measure their impact.

Global Capability Centres in India are changing too. “Leading centers are no longer judged only by cost efficiency,” he said. “They now handle global products, AI innovation, and customer outcomes.” Planview’s Bengaluru teams, for instance, manage products from design to delivery.

The company plans to hire more AI, engineering, and data science professionals as demand rises for platforms that govern complex transformation programs. This shift reflects an industry move toward outcome-driven planning, where success depends on business impact rather than project completion.

Zilli’s view matches a growing understanding that AI’s next phase won’t focus on deploying the most models but on governing investments, measuring outcomes, and adapting strategy in real time. The gap between strategy and results, he said, is where enterprise planning platforms can have the greatest effect.

India’s role in this transition is key. The Bengaluru center’s rapid expansion shows the country is more than a cost-effective engineering base—it’s a testing ground for tools that will shape how enterprises manage AI and digital transformation at scale.

This change aligns with broader industry trends, including efforts to improve threat investigation efficiency in cybersecurity.