U.S. tech talent shortage? General Motors is making a very big bet that it can hire a steady stream of IT pros in the United States, including a lot of new college grads, as part of a new information technology strategy.
GM is planning an IT overhaul under CIO Randy Mott that includes creating three software development centers in the U.S. and potentially hiring hundreds of developers, project managers, and other IT professionals as it reverses its decades-old reliance on IT outsourcers. It will also consolidate its data centers in two main facilities in Michigan.
Mott thinks having the developers in the U.S. will make it easier for them to collaborate, believing that projects move faster and teams work better if they're physically located in the same place. Mott also wants IT pros who understand GM's automotive business. GM will add IT pros internationally, but they'll be in roles of planning and requirement gathering.
GM won't say how many IT people it plans to hire. But it had hired 91 new IT people as of late June, and "that's a slow ramp compared with where we will be," Mott says.