ASG Group makes strategic hires for SAP, Oracle practices

ASG Group has hired three new practice managers to fill newly created roles as part of the company’s organic growth strategy.

Gregor Bresser has been named the national practice manager for SAP and Steve Simek will lead the firm’s national Oracle practice. Beth Welch has also been named ASG’s internal enterprise analytics practice manager.

In the new vendor account roles, Bresser and Simek will be responsible for growing the company’s SAP and Oracle footprints, developing go-to-market strategies, building new alliances and growing the range of Oracle and SAP services that ASG can deliver.

ASG’s head of capability, enterprise applications and analytics, Brendan Leonard, said the company’s SAP business was ready for growth.

“For some years our SAP has been performing solidly but we have known that it has much more potential,” he said. “ASG needed to take a conscious decision to refocus on growth.The company has a tried and tested ERP-as-a-service offering and great references deploying ERPaaS at large, complex organisations and we are looking to further grow this area.”

Prior to joining ASG, Bresser spent more than eight years with Fujitsu Australia, entering the company as a management consultant in 2009 before promotions leading to the SAP director of operations role.

Simek joins ASG with more than 30 years of experience in the IT industry, some 17 of those spent with Oracle. The company said his attributes made him the perfect fit for a national Oracle role.

“[Simek's] experience formulating Oracle’s go-to-market strategies across their entire application stack including ERP, HCM, customer experience and enterprise performance management resonated strongly with ASG and mirrors our aims for the Oracle Practice,” Leonard said.

Welch, now enterprise analytics practice manager for ASG, has been with the company since 2012 after joining as national delivery manager of enterprise analytics and performance from enterprise performance management firm Capiotech. Welch is also a director of Sydney-based software development firm OpenClear.

Leonard said the hires were key steps for ASG going forward.

“The search was exhaustive and took close to a year. Steve and Gregor’s ability to articulate a strategy that would deliver growth for the practice was the key differentiator for ASG,” he said.

“Both also have significant experience in cloud strategy which is a key focus area for ASG. The company needed leaders that could think big – ASG is targeting strong growth in it’s SAP, Oracle and enterprise analytics practices. Gregor and Steve both have pedigree in tier one organisations and can bring their experience to ASG at this significant time of growth for the organisation.”

ASG recently came out on top in a battle with DWS to acquire SMS Management and Technology, successfully outbidding the Melbourne company to acquire SMS for $124 million.

In May Perth-based ASG revealed it had put in a legally binding bid to acquire 100 percent of SMS’ shares for $1.80 each in cash.

DWS’ offer was to acquire SMS for $1 in cash for each share plus 0.39 DWS shares. Both offers were valued at approximately $124 million, however, independent financial advisers recommended that the ASG offer was superior to DWS.

ASG itself was taken over in December last year after receiving a $350 million takeover bid from Nomura Research Institute in September.