Andersen Consulting reveals new name
Andersen Consulting managing partner and CEO, Joe Forehand, today announced its new brand name will be Accenture.
The firm will cease to operate under the name Andersen Consulting as of midnight on 31 December, as it was ordered to do following its divorce from Arthur Anderesen 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.’
The company has spent three months searching for its new brand – Accenture means putting an accent or emphasis on the future – and was submitted by Kim Petersen, a business consultant working for Andersen Consulting in Norway.
It is understood the company will undertake an aggressive global rebranding campaign in the new year which will cost the firm $175m (£135m) over the first nine months of next year. Current advertising spending for Andersen Consulting runs at around £66.5m.
But this is understood to be start. Further investment is likely to be necessary over the following three years.
At the time of the break up branding experts reckoned the brand, which must be relinquished by 1 January, represented a loss of some £2bn-£2.6bn of Andersen Consulting’s total value.
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Andersen Consulting facing £2bn brand loss