In such cases, the company continues running the local applications and massages them to work with its mainstream software. "We leave alone what we can leave alone," Halbouty said.

Cultural issues also can pose big challenges to IT managers. Frederick Danback, vice president of global technology architecture at XL Global Services Inc., said acquisitions made by parent company XL Capital Ltd. over the past few years left the insurance and financial services firm with 17 IT organizations in 30 countries.

XL Capital is based in Hamilton, Bermuda. But Danback, who works in Stamford, Conn., said his operation was largely a U.S. team before the buying spree. Then, he added, "there was a decree by corporate management that we will become one company, without cultural borders."

Making that happen has been a daunting process, said Danback, who took part in the panel discussion with Silverman. Danback noted that U.S. workers tend to move more quickly on projects than staffers elsewhere. After XL bought a company in Switzerland, "we found that in the Swiss culture, it's all about putting it all on paper first," he said.

In the end, though, the intermingling proved to be beneficial, according to Danback. "By bringing in all these other cultures," he said, "they gave us some discipline, and we gave them some agility."