ASG Group picks up Canberra consultancy Pragma Partners

In its second Canberra-based acquisition in less than 24 months, digital consultancy ASG Group has picked up management consulting firm Pragma Partners.

Digital strategy and transformation advisory ASG Group has acquired Canberra-based human-centred design and services management consultancy Pragma Partners, which focuses on the public sector and higher education. Pragma Partners will continue to operate under its own brand according to the terms of the deal, with CEO and managing director Jay Wilton continuing to lead the business alongside a team of 30-plus staff.

“We are excited to be working with the ASG Group, as it will dramatically increase our presence nationally, and allows us to work with a wider range of clients,” Wilton said. “Pragma Partners is a design-led, service transformation business. This approach will not change, and we will continue to focus on understanding our clients’ needs, and designing clear, implementable, and user-focused technologies and services for them.”

Established by Wilton in 2017, after spending more than a decade in leadership roles within the Australian government’s Department of Industry and Science, Pragma Partners offers a range of services built around user-centred research and design, including in the areas of UX, business architecture, strategy and delivery, and marketing & communications. Numerous government agencies feature among the firm’s roster of clients.

As one example of Pragma’s work is with the Department of Human Services, which had sought to make its welfare payments system simpler and more user-friendly across multiple channels, due in part to growing diversity among customers including those with limited computer literacy, language skills, or other impairments. Pragma Partners was drafted in to provide user research, first developing a framework and then advising on experience design to improve usability.

“We are delighted to welcome Pragma Partners into the wider ASG Group, as their entrepreneurial spirit and their client-first approach to business reflects our own,” said ASG Group CEO and one-time Deloitte senior accountant, Dean Langenbach. “Pragma Partners is a significant addition to our portfolio, especially as we continue to grow our national footprint. This acquisition will help boost our already strong public sector client base in Canberra.”

That ‘strong public sector client base in Canberra’ is in part built on ASG’s previous and otherwise most recent acquisition of locally-based ICT asset management specialist Group 10 Consulting, back in March of last year during the onset of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

Owned by Japanese IT systems integrator Nomura Research Institute (NRI) since its purchase in 2016, ASG has a headcount of over 2,000 across six capital cities in Australia.