Rod Travers, executive vice president, Robert E. Nolan Co.
“The pace will pick up as the market begins to turn. Those carriers that haven’t been able to keep pace with technology are going to find themselves potentially acquired because they are not competitive. There are companies looking to buy market share or geographic presence. There are acquirers and those that are being acquired. Both bring value to that transaction. The CIO needs to be prepared for either of those eventualities. I think they’ll know which side of the equation they’ll fall on. If their costs are higher than their competitors and their technology is older and they are not keeping pace with the market as it turns, they might want to begin preparing themselves for being an acquisition target and what that might mean. [CIOs] can make themselves valuable if an acquisition occurs by understanding how to integrate those operations effectively. People experienced with integrating operations are valuable in times like these.”