The suburban Atlanta IT center will be the third of four that GM ultimately plans to operate.
General Motors will hire 1,000 employees to staff a new technology center in Atlanta, the third of four new IT campuses the Detroit maker plans to operate as it places increasing emphasis on digital technology for everything from dealer training programs to “the content we’ll put into our vehicles,” said the maker’s chief technology officer.
Ultimately, GM plans to establish four “geographically diverse” IT centers, noted CTO Randy Mott during a conference call with reporters prior to attending the public announcement of the third of those facilities, which will be located in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell.
When the fourth center comes online in the near future it will mark a significant shift in strategy for GM, which had for years outsourced the bulk of its information technology work, a large share of it to Texas-based Hewlett-Packard. Last year, GM announced it would largely end that contracting relationship, bringing 3,000 HP workers in-house while setting up additional digital technology centers.
Currently, GM has about 2,200 IT employees, including 700 in new centers in Austin and Detroit, “and we’re headed for a range of roughly 10,000 people,” said CTO Mott, “90% of which will be GM-badged,” which means there are still thousands more technology workers left to be recruited.
The Atlanta center will be linked to existing General Motors IT campuses as part of the maker’s strategy to spread the facilities out around the country. One reason is to tap into communities that are what Mott described as “a good attraction for people to move” to, while also being close to existing IT centers and universities.
The plan is to hire a mix of college graduates and what he called “seasoned professionals.”
GM is by no means the only maker expanding its push into IT. Today’s cars often have more high-tech hardware and software on board than owners might have in their homes or offices, and that trend is only set to continue. Meanwhile, makers are using technology at all levels of their business: setting up smartphone apps that can help schedule service appointments, for example, or monitor the state of charge of an electric vehicle.
Ford and Volkswagen are among a number of carmakers who have established major IT centers in Silicon Valley where they hope to tap into the legendary computing center’s vast pool of talent.
“We look to the Innovation Centers to design and deliver IT that drives down the cost of ongoing operations while continuously increasing the level and speed at which innovative products and services are available to GM customers,” Mott said. “The IT Innovation Centers are critical to our overall GM business strategy and IT transformation.”
GM’s split from HP has generated a bit of friction between the two companies, the high-tech firm threatening to take legal action against two senior IT veterans who have planned to join GM.
“That feels very retaliatory and harassing,” Mott lamented, calling the threatened action, “not the best use of our legal system.” But he insisted that, on the whole, the split is being handled efficiently and smoothly.