General Motors has developed a set of best practices based on social networking and open source projects to specify how IT suppliers and users companies communicate. The standard is designed to minimize the risk of failure in complex IT projects involving third-party suppliers.

Computer Weekly reported that General Motors looked at how teenagers communicate using Web 2.0 technologies and the way open source projects are managed, as examples of how social networking could be applied to its business.

The new system allows the car manufacturer's main IT suppliers to work together without the need for General Motors to manage the collaboration. Previously, the company's IT staff co-ordinated key suppliers, but as the business evolved to real-time operations, it was becoming increasingly difficult to manage the supplier relationships. General Motors collaborated with the Carnegie Mellon software engineering Institute, the US Department of Defense and Capgemini to develop this new system.