GM Cuts IT Services, Brings IT Back In-House

General Motors continues to bring back outsourced computer service in-house and said that it will hire at least 2,000 people for four new "information technology centers".

According to Bloomberg, the first location - Austin, Texas - has opened and is currently staffed by a very few, but will end up at about 500 total workers. GM apparently plans to return 90 percent of work that has been outsourced after a lengthy IT evaluation process back to the company.

In 2006, GM invited companies such as IBM, HP and Cap Gemini to manage most of its IT infrastructure and awarded a multi-billion dollar contract over several years, which may not have delivered the results GM had hoped for.

Bloomberg reports that GM intends to become more nimble by managing its own IT. CIO Randy Mott, who is responsible for the new plan, said that about 10,000 jobs could be added over the next three to five years globally. The primary mission of the new information technology centers will be to "develop software and change processes to help GM bring new vehicles to market faster."

Bringing IT back in-house is also expected to save IT cost.

Wolfgang Gruener is a contributor to Tom's IT Pro. He is currently principal analyst at Ndicio Research, a market analysis firm that focuses on cloud computing and disruptive technologies, and maintains the conceivablytech.com blog. An 18-year veteran in IT journalism and market research, he previously published TG Daily and was managing editor of Tom's Hardware news, which he grew from a link collection in the early 2000s into one of the most comprehensive and trusted technology news sources.

See here for all of Wolfgang's Tom's IT Pro articles.