Brooks agrees. "CIOs need to build a business case for involvement," he says. "They need to let M&A know that when they don't bring in IT and miss a reporting deadline, the SEC tends to get a little grumpy."

"Once the CEO gives a number to Wall Street, it is poured in concrete," says Gaboriault, who has led more than 50 acquisitions. "To meet that number, you need a solid integration plan defined by a team of business owners and IT that answers: What does a successful integration mean? What does our end-state look like? What systems will we be able to run on day one or 30 or 60?" he says. "If you and the business owners cannot articulate that before the integration begins, you have a problem with the deal rationale in the first place."

A well-communicated plan is particularly important to the IT team, says Rowland. "The executives talk about combined value and synergies, and the employees are thinking one thing: Do I have a job? The sooner you communicate those decisions, [the sooner] everyone can plan their lives and focus. If you wait, you risk losing your best people."

"In our first major acquisition, we promised significant synergies in a year. We delivered in nine months, because we made aggressive decisions and went in with a plan," says Brooks, who has completed more than a dozen acquisitions at Viterra. "Remember that any decision is better than no decision. You're going to get some of it wrong, but you have to keep the ball rolling."

Running acquisitions is not for the faint of heart. But the rewards are rich if CIOs can roll up their sleeves and get it done, says Brooks. "They'll see a career's worth of issues in a year of integration."