General Motors Will Slash Outsourcing In IT Overhaul

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ChrisMurphy,
User Rank: Author
7/10/2012 | 1:29:17 PM

re: General Motors Will Slash Outsourcing In IT Overhaul

Moves like commonizing and consolidating apps aren't new tactics for GM. But I think moving from hugely outsourced to hugely insourced is a very big and new shift, and one that comes with a lot of risk. Hiring that many people while building the culture GM needs will be a major leadership challenge.

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spectrum,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/10/2012 | 7:26:41 AM

re: General Motors Will Slash Outsourcing In IT Overhaul

Finally Someone who gets it, software architecture is moving from fairly static workflow model to real time event driven workflow. Unfortunately the delegated bureaucracy model of the mainframe era can no longer function well in the real time event drive future into which all software systems are headed. The budget manipulators cannot no longer be at the top trying to cut costs by delegated bureaucracy to low cost disinterested parties continually finding ways to bleed the host corporation. Put 10 top level working architects who can deep dive into any new technology at the top of the organization and you will be able get consensus and propel any large enterprise effectively into this brave new world. Engineers got the united states to the moon.

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AS71,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/10/2012 | 4:24:15 AM

re: General Motors Will Slash Outsourcing In IT Overhaul

Why would HP win big on this strategy? They are the primary outsourcer, through EDS, of these contracts which will be cancelled. HP will likely lose the most. Also, I doubt Mott has a soft spot for the company that just pushed him out.

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Andrew Hornback,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/10/2012 | 2:28:01 AM

re: General Motors Will Slash Outsourcing In IT Overhaul

Well, the UAW has to be salivating over this planned expansion at GM... I can't imagine that they would simply let this pass by without trying to organize this new influx of IT workers under their Technical, Office and Professional workers group.

I would think (and hope) that that's something that's been considered when building this strategy - but if it hasn't, someone should get Mr. Mott a case of new batteries for that calculator, it's going to have a lot of work to do.

I'm also guessing that HP stands to win big on this strategy.

"Would better collaboration tools help engineers and designers be more creative?" - I sure hope so, and soon for the designers at Cadillac. Ever since they redesigned the logo, they seem to have forgotten how to design cars...

Andrew Hornback
InformationWeek Contributor

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Marrach,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/10/2012 | 2:22:20 AM

re: General Motors Will Slash Outsourcing In IT Overhaul

Let me put another spin on this--

Consultants and Outsourcers came into the picture because, frankly, a lot of Internal IT Dept's were all about inertia and maintaining the 'Sacred Mainframes'

Back then, the Consultants and the outsourcers WERE the Breath of Fresh air-- introducing the new technologies and new ways of thinking.

But that was years and years ago. NOW-- the Consultants and the Outsourcers are suffering the same poison of Inertia, Inability to Change and Lack of Nimbleness to adapt to new circumstances. The Article is right-- if you need a change, you need to re-negotiate the Contract-- and then the outsourcer/consultant ONLY gives you what they see outlined in the contract and not ONE line of code more.

People, that's the attitude that's KILLING Business.

Add to it the unspoken truth that a Lot of current CIO's are CIO's in Title Only. Many of them just dressed up Executives who rotated out of the CFO's staff. They can rotate an Excel Sheet and open a PowerPoint...and BadaBoom!.. they're Instantly qualified to say what is and Is Not crucial to a company's IT force.

The Consultants LOVE these overdressed Executives. They ask no Hard Questions. They NEVER KNOW ENOUGH to understand when they are being sold a bill of worthless goods. And even when they have Competent IT staff to ask the relevant questions, they willfully ignore the Opinions of the 'Drones' below the Executive Suites as too troublesome. So the Consultants come in, they complement each other on how sharp their suits look, they do a 'Business Lunch' where NO HARD QUESTIONS are asked, and then the bubbly is popped when the contracts are signed..Here, here...and here, thankyou!

Mr. Mott needs to clean out the upstairs IT Executive ghettos. So do a lot of other American Companies. I say, it's about time!

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AS71,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/10/2012 | 12:19:42 AM

re: General Motors Will Slash Outsourcing In IT Overhaul

I agree that these are not new ideas. "Revenue of IT", "business value driven IT", "business aligned IT" and other popular phrases for tying IT spend to ROI have been around for decades. The problem is that the juice, generally, isn't worth the squeeze. Yes, you can probably hammer down a fairly comprehensive ROI for projects if you have a dozen analysts working on the numbers, DCFs, NPVs, etc, but, except for very large projects, the cost of the analysis and the bureaucracy consumes the gains. All of this analysis on ROI also makes it really complex to do anything as building the business case is such a hassle. Also, many IT projects don't have a clear cut ROI even though there is a clear cut need. What is the ROI on a collaboration application or an intranet portal? There may be some productivity gains, but it is a far stretch to say those productivity gains will hit the bottom line. Likewise with social media development, mobile consumer apps, etc. It is pretty difficult to determine that for every dollar spent you will receive $x in ROI. It is generally more cost effective and faster to just let managers make some judgement calls under a certain dollar amount.

On the age old application rationalization and data center consolidation topics, no one created 4,000 applications because they thought it would be more cost efficient than 40. They did it because they needed to get things done without going through the months long change management process of adding a field in SAP or some other enterprise wide application to ensure their change does not have an unforeseen impact on some other user group. By the time changes are made in centralized organizations, the requester usually has moved on or found a manual work around. Everyone has a slightly different task they are trying to perform and everyone needs their change requests processed now. Consolidation equals cost efficiencies, but they generally do not equal agility or speed to market efficiencies. You end up with a really cost effective IT organization that does not meet any group's needs particularly well. The same reason that local fire departments are not managed at the Federal level.

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SRV,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/9/2012 | 8:14:30 PM

re: General Motors Will Slash Outsourcing In IT Overhaul

To Wakjob2:

You are the same troll who visits multiple web sites and blogs, bashing all Outsourcing/IT services companies, especially Indian outfits. Your reasoning for GM's bankruptcy being the signing of a piddly $300MM outsourcing deal with WIPRO shows your utter ignorance and pathetic racism. There's a good proverb that's applicable to you: "It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than speak and remove all doubts". Just apply that to posting on all blog sites, you moron.

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joelapp,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/9/2012 | 7:38:55 PM

re: General Motors Will Slash Outsourcing In IT Overhaul

GM has yanked the HP/EDS chain ever since they sold their IT off. Each contract they tend to contradict the requirements from the previous one. This "new idea" is another example of GM's continuing IT services pullback since around '04. A lot of those thousands of applications mentioned in the story were a result of the decentralization effort they made in the early 2000's - letting the plants do more development. They then cut back a huge number in an effort to "commonize" their apps prior to the '06 contract and now they are just continuing to move in that direction and that led to HP job cuts. So, in reality, this is really nothing new.

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joelapp,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/9/2012 | 7:31:44 PM

re: General Motors Will Slash Outsourcing In IT Overhaul

while it is easy to agree with your sentiment, it is entirely unrealistic when it comes to IT.

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Leo Regulus,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/9/2012 | 7:25:36 PM

re: General Motors Will Slash Outsourcing In IT Overhaul

(Showing my age here) There used to be a 'Union' label on purchased goods that were 'Union Made'. Now we seldom know what percentage of a purchase price goes off-Shore. GM & other companies keeping jobs on-shore need to be supported. Let's stay with them!

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