Operational Excellence (OPEX) Daily Briefing – Thursday, November 06, 2025: From Peak to Disruption: How OPEX Helps Businesses See the Limits of Technology.
Điểm Tin Operational Excellence (OPEX) Mỗi Ngày – Thứ Năm, Ngày 06/11/2025: Từ Đỉnh Cao Đến Bị Thay Thế: Khi OPEX Giúp Doanh Nghiệp Nhìn Thấy Giới Hạn Của Công Nghệ.
Welcome to my unique weekday article for the paid subscriber-only edition.
Operational Excellence (OPEX) Daily Briefing – issued on weekdays (Monday to Friday).
Điểm tin Operational Excellence (OPEX) hằng ngày (phát hành các ngày thứ Hai đến thứ Sáu).
This is the bilingual post in English and Vietnamese. Vietnamese is below.
Đây là bài viết song ngữ Anh-Việt. Tiếng Việt ở bên dưới.
English
Part 1: Official Statement
On November 6, 2025, General Motors (GM) — one of the world’s leading industrial groups — announced plans to shut down its IT Center in Chandler, Arizona, and cut approximately 940 jobs. According to Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, this decision is part of the automaker’s global strategy to streamline operations and reduce fixed costs.
A GM spokesperson said the company is “restructuring its information technology model to better align with its global direction on automation, digitization, and electrification.” The closure of the Arizona center — originally opened in 2014 to bring technological capabilities in-house — marks a major shift in GM’s operational thinking: from an “IT in-house” model to one that is “integrated and more agile.”
From the perspective of Operational Excellence (OPEX), this is not simply a cost-cutting measure, but could represent a strategic pivot aimed at rebuilding the company’s operational structure for flexibility and adaptability in response to the accelerating pace of technological change.
1. When “streamlining operations” is more than just saving costs
In a volatile global economy, many industrial companies — especially in the automotive sector — are under pressure to balance technological innovation, financial performance, and operational efficiency. According to Reuters, GM is investing heavily in electric vehicles (EVs), battery technology, and integrated software systems for smart vehicles. To sustain these strategic priorities, the company must reallocate resources away from lower-value operations, such as traditional IT centers.
Through the OPEX lens, this decision can be interpreted as an optimization of the internal value stream — identifying which core capabilities should be retained and which can be transformed or phased out to accelerate innovation. This reflects the Lean Principle: retain only what genuinely creates value for customers and the organization.
2. When technology that was once a competitive advantage becomes a burden
Over the past decade, GM was regarded as a digital transformation pioneer among traditional automakers. The company built multiple in-house IT centers across the United States to reduce dependency on external vendors, improve response times, and enhance data security. However, by 2025, the technology landscape has changed significantly: cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and automation platforms are rapidly replacing localized IT infrastructures.
According to Forbes and other analysts, many global corporations are now stepping away from the “in-house IT era” toward more platform-based outsourcing models — reducing fixed costs while enabling faster technology deployment. This trend highlights a natural inflection point in the technology lifecycle, where models that were once efficient become rigid, costly, and slower to adapt to change.
From the OPEX perspective, recognizing the moment when a model reaches its efficiency peak is critical. Not every system should be maintained indefinitely; operational effectiveness exists only as long as the environment and competitive dynamics remain aligned with it.
3. When “restructuring” signals transformation rather than retreat
GM has stated that affected employees in Arizona will be notified in Q4 2025, and that resources will be shifted toward major technology and engineering hubs in Michigan, Texas, and Mexico. Analysts view this move not simply as downsizing, but as a reorientation toward a global digital operations model — one where technology functions as a strategic enabler rather than a support service.
Through the OPEX framework, this marks a preparation for a new cycle of operational efficiency — removing organizational bottlenecks, improving data connectivity, and accelerating innovation. In essence, closing a center may not represent a step backward, but a strategic rebalancing of GM’s operational architecture to match the speed of technological evolution.
When viewed traditionally, job cuts and IT consolidation may seem like short-term financial tactics. Yet, through the lens of OPEX, this move signifies maturity in operational thinking — the ability to acknowledge the limitations of an old model and proactively redesign it before external pressures force the change.
Operational efficiency, therefore, is not about maintaining stability at all costs; it is about the ability to see limitations and prepare for the next curve of productivity and technology. Even as it undergoes restructuring, GM may be doing what many companies have not yet dared to do — redefining efficiency not as an end result, but as the organizational capacity to adapt.