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Originally Posted by Stuart C
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Originally Posted by spiderplant
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Originally Posted by Stuart C
Companies often change their name if the old one has a bad reputation. Anderson Consulting were one of several Arthur Anderson companies involved in the Enron scandal. Rather than try and weather the storm, they changed their name to "accenture".
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Actually they changed the name before the Enron scandal, having fallen out with Arthur Andersen. Very fortuitous timing, all the same.
They're still commonly referred to as "Androids" though. |
That may be true, but they didn't heavily publicise the new name until Enron had happened. |
Actually, that's completely incorrect, Stu. I was working for AC/Accenture at the time and I can tell you that Andersen Consulting were legally forced to stop using the name as of 1st January 2001, as part of the separation terms enforced by the International Chamber of Commerce.
The decision from the ICC was announced in September 2000. The company then had 80 days to come up with a new brand which had to be used as of Jan 1st. The Andersen Consulting name was removed from everything - including all buildings, laptops, consultants' luggage tags, every single letter head, etc... prior to the deadline (although I've still got an old AC mug at home
). Things that couldn't be changed, ie software, were rebranded with a disclaimer saying that Andersen Consulting referred to the company now known as Accenture, and had nothing to do with Arthur Andersen.
The name change was 100% categorically nothing to do with Arthur Andersen. The divorce from AA started in '98 and was instigated because of a convulated scheme whereby the more successful of the 2 companies was supposed to pay the other company 15% of its profits. This arrangement, itself, dated back to 1989 when Andersen Consulting was initially split from Arthur Andersen and the parent group AWSC.
The findings of the ICC meant that Arthur Andersen got to keep the name Andersen Consulting, and I remember getting emails from people at AA which showed they were planning on renaming themselves to take advantage of owning the name AC. There are also some hilarious cartoons over at
Bigtime Consulting - see
here,
here,
here and
here (conceived and drawn by an AC employee) detailing the affair
In reality, the name change was always going to happen in any case. There was a competition internally to find a new name for AC (after the suggestions made by an external marketing company were all rejected) which slighlty predated the decision by the ICC. The Partners had already expressed how they thought the "Consulting" part of the name was a hindrence, as the company was already starting to do more and more outsourcing work even back then. From what I remember, it was a Senior Manager from the Norway office who came up with the name (who supposedly got the idea from the phrase "Accent on the Future")... all he got out of it was the chance to go to some golf tournament and shake hands with the CEO Joe Forehand.
The Enron affair didn't start until the autumn of 2001. I was at St Charles in Chicago with a bunch of AA employees in the summer of 2001, and it wasn't until several months after that date that things kicked off.
Just wanted to clear that up. Also Accenture's legal department are some of the smartest people you can meet, so they wouldn't take too kindly to suggesting they were in any way implicated with the Enron affair
ps - it's Anders
en not Anders
on