Deloitte buys developer Well Placed Cactus to boost digital development skills

Well Placed Cactus is a team of programmers based in Melbourne and Brisbane who create interactive instalments and games using existing and new technologies such as virtual- and augmented-reality headsets.

Eleven staff from the developer will join Deloitte Digital. Well Placed Cactus' CEO Jack Gillespie will become a director at Deloitte, while chief operating officer Paul Stapelberg, creative director Nic Gomez and technical director Leigh Mannes will join as managers.

Mr Gillespie said he and the team are looking forward to moving in-house at Deloitte and pointed to the work the firms had done together on the "three-storey-high interactive garden installation" at the ANZ branch in Sydney's Martin Place. Customers can interact with the wall using Twitter messages.
Deloitte did not disclose how much was paid for Well Placed Cactus, although an ASIC search indicated the firm, founded in 2012, has a turnover of less than $20 million.

Deloitte partner Steve Hallam said the purchase "allows us to move from the realm of generating great creative ideas into also building and delivering them".

This year Deloitte has purchased technology consultancy JKVine, with four owners joining as principals.

Buying spree

Last year Deloitte purchased another emerging technology development firm, the four-person Kid Neon, an outfit that specialised in group virtual reality development.

It also bought Sixtree, which specialised in integrating older legacy systems with emerging technologies, such as mobile apps and Internet of Things networks, and brought on two of the founders of the 45-person firm.

Deloitte's other recent acquisitions include Cloud Solutions Group (a cloud infrastructure advisory service); Qubit Consulting (a deal that Deloitte claimed made it Australia's largest provider of identity and access management services); Dataweave (Oracle implementation services, identity management and cloud solution delivery); The Explainers (corporate storytelling); and Digivizer (providing real-time social analytics to strategic business consulting).

The Australian Financial Review's Top 100 Accounting Firms, published last month, shows outfits that have invested in technology and recruited or trained staff up in technical skills have grown revenue strongly in the past year.

Growth was also evident in acquisitive firms, especially in the accounting and financial advisory space, and at smaller firms that focused on a market segment or a particular service offering.

The big four firms continue to make technology acquisitions and have expanded into a variety of different areas such as engineering and marketing, the survey found.

All four big CEOs have said consulting and advisory services were among the fastest growing areas at their respective businesses.