AC picks Accenture.
Cost of split from Arthur Andersen looks set to hit #135m next year.
Andersen Consulting managing partner and CEO Joe Forehand says the firm is set to spend #135m during the first nine months of next year promoting its new brand name Accenture.
The cost of the arbitrators’ decision to award the Andersen name to Arthur Andersen earlier this year was published as the new brand name was revealed.
But the true cost will escalate by up to another $100m after legal fees and its branding company, Landor, have been paid.
Forehand delivered the news on Accenture as Arthur Andersen revealed it would announce a decision on the possible use of the Andersen Consulting name later this month.
This will coincide with the introduction of its new CEO.
‘We feel that would be an appropriate time to launch publicly our own plans – once, of course, we have shared them with our own people.’
The new Andersen Consulting name was designed by Kim Petersen, a business consultant working for AC in Norway.
It will come into use on 1 January as it was ordered to do following the divorce of Arthur Andersen and Andersen Worldwide in August.
‘We are a very different organisation today than we were when we formed Andersen Consulting back in 1989, so adopting a new name and brand identity is a logical next step in our growth strategy,’ said Forehand.
He added: ‘Accenture expresses what we have become as an organisation as well as what we hope to be – a network of businesses that transcends the boundaries of traditional consulting and brings innovations that dramatically improve the way the world works and lives.’
Experts believe the loss of the AC brand represents #2bn-#2.6bn of the firm’s total value.
Resources & Whitepapers
Accounting Software The power of customisation in accounting systems
www.ac.com
Andersen’s fee income leaps
www.accountancyage.com/Practice/1112301.