GM to open IT center near Atlanta, creating 1,000 jobs

General Motors Co. said Thursday it will open a new IT center in suburban Atlanta, adding about 1,000 new high-tech jobs.

GM is announcing the third of four planned IT centers in Roswell, Ga., at an event with Gov. Nathan Deal.

"This Innovation Center is exactly the kind of employer we want in the state," said Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal. "The information age will be with us for a long time, and attracting companies such as GM that are on the cutting edge of manufacturing and technology is a huge win for Georgia."

GM said the new Information Technology Innovation Center will employ software developers, project managers, database experts, business analysts and other IT professionals

"Locating this center in Atlanta makes good business sense," said GM Chief Information Officer Randy Mott. "We can draw from a deep pool of high-tech expertise through the surrounding colleges, universities and talent residing in the area."

GM already has hired more than 700 IT employees to work at the Innovation Centers in Austin, Texas, and Warren in Macomb County. GM plans to hire up to 1,500 for the center at its Warren Tech Center over the next four years.

GM said about 75 percent of job candidates offered jobs to date have accepted them.

Mott is leading a rebalancing of information technology at GM under which the majority of IT work will be done by GM employees instead of being outsourced, which has been the GM model for most of the last three decades.

"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 said the location of the fourth site will be announced at a later date, but said it is looking for "geographic diversity" in the offices.

Mott, a former Hewlett-Packard Co. employee hired by GM in February, also criticized HP's legal request last month to depose two former HP employees that went to work for GM.

HP said in a legal filing that18 HP employees at its Global IT office quit on Nov. 30 and went to work en masse for GM's new Austin IT center. Two HP employees in Alpharetta, Ga., also resigned and went to work for GM on Nov. 30.

HP said the two senior employees that it wants to depose had contracts that barred them from trying to convince HP employees to leave and join a rival firm for a year after they left HP.

In October, GM announced plans to hire 3,000 HP employees for IT operations it had outsourced.

GM said it reached a deal with HP to in-source about 3,000 HP employees already running GM's information technology operations. Under the terms of the agreement, the workers will become employees of GM.

Mott called the HP action "a fishing expedition" and "very retaliatory and harassing" to the two former HP employees that the firm wants to question.

"It's not the best use of our legal system," Mott told reporters on a conference call. "We're looking for talent."

GM is in the midst of transforming its information technology organization and plans to hire fewer than 10,000 workers as it in-sources the majority of its information technology work.

Previously, about 10 percent of information technology operations are handled within GM by about 1,500 workers globally, including 900 to 1,000 in Detroit and Warren.

The other 90 percent is handled by about 10,000 people outside GM and Mott wants to flip those percentages over the next three to five years.

dshepardson@detnews.com

(202) 662-8735

Source: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130110/AUTO0103/301100422/1148/rss25

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