When should the CIO be involved in the acquisition process?

The way I’ve thought about it is: These are very expensive meetings, so do I really need to be there? What value am I adding? Do I need to be there now to make this a smooth process, or is that a day two activity? Ask yourself: Why are we even doing this acquisition?

It depends on whether the CIO will have a material impact as part of the deal. If it's a tech company acquiring another tech company, of course the CIO or the CTO will need to be involved, depending on the structure of the organization. But if it's a product company that is not technology, even if they are using cloud or are heavily into data, I don't think it's as important. There might be a tech component to it, but the key is whether that component is material to the deal.

When working with a partner or even a supplier, how many of us have longed for tight enough integration to the point that you knew if they were able to solve problems for you, almost on a moment-by-moment basis? When you have a relationship where the rest of the C-suite understands the value of their CIO, then it shouldn't be a question of whether the CIO always needs to be involved. That’s like asking, "Does the head of facilities always need to be involved?"

In this case, the CIO is a rockstar in customer service associated with delivering technology. If we're investing in technology that might be additive to ours, the CIO has the perspective of the buyer of this solution and knows how that should be considered. So the real question is: How well do you integrate with your existing C-suite? They should be able to put you in for the right opportunities, as opposed to just assuming that you need to be involved on day one every single time.

It depends on what responsibilities the CIO has. I wear an integration management office (IMO) hat and an enterprise data analytics hat, so I drive insights that help the business make decisions. Those are additional responsibilities that not every CIO has. Having a project management office (PMO) comes with additional privileges, including getting early insights into decision making for acquisitions. So it all depends on how empowered a CIO is in the company.