Deloitte acquires software development agency Well Placed Cactus to boost digital capabilities

Deloitte has acquired software development agency Well Placed Cactus and its team to boost its digital capabilities.

Based in Brisbane and Melbourne, Well Placed Cactus was founded in 2012 and has worked with clients including ANZ and the National Museum of Australia on projects including games, apps, interactive installations, and augmented and virtual reality.

Cindy Hook, CEO of Deloitte Australia, said, “The Well Placed Cactus team will further drive our business expertise and design capabilities to enhance integrated and creative solutions to help our clients solve their most complex problems.”

The Well Placed Cactus team will join Deloitte Digital in Deloitte’s Consulting practice, forming a new Digital Emerging Technology team to be led by Steve Hallam.

Meanwhile, Well Placed Cactus CEO Jack Gillespie will join Deloitte as a director, with the rest of the 11 person team to join the firm’s Brisbane and Melbourne offices.

Gillespie said that, with the team having worked with Deloitte on various projects over the last few years, including a Virtual Garden installation for ANZ in Sydney’s Martin Place, it is “thrilled” to move in-house and integrate its technical expertise into Deloitte’s existing creative capability.

“For an organisation of Deloitte’s scale to bring an established emerging technology team in-house is a huge step forward for the industry,” he said.

Hallam added that bringing on the Well Placed Cactus team is a “natural evolution”, saying that the team’s deep technology understanding will allow Deloitte to move on from generating creative ideas into also building and delivering them.

This is the latest acquisition for Deloitte in the emerging technologies space, with the firm last September acquiring architectural illustration firm Kid Neon, which works with architects and designers to create and visualise spaces through technology including VR, 3D, and spatial modelling and visualisation.

It also acquired boutique integration specialist firm Sixtree last year, and brought on Adrian Mills, David Phillips, and Matt Lawson of creative advertising agency McCann Melbourne earlier this year to lead its Brand Creative and Media team within Deloitte Digital.

To boost its data analytics capabilities, meanwhile, the firm last month hired Cameron Price and Gerard Skybey of Asia Pacific consulting firm CBIG Consulting and their team of 39, with the team to join Deloitte’s Analytics and Information Management teams across Sydney, Melbourne, and Singapore.

Image: Cindy Hook. Source: Deloitte.