Continuous innovation and rapid transformation have been themes throughout Accenture’s history.
Initially called Andersen Consulting, Accenture was formally established in 1989 when a group of partners from the Consulting division of the various Arthur Andersen firms around the world formed a new organization focused on consulting and technology services related to managing large-scale systems integration and enhancing business processes.
That same year Accenture formalized Business Integration, its framework for aligning a client’s people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy to enable all components of the client organization to work to enhance business performance. During its first 10 years, Accenture evolved from a systems integrator to a global management consulting and technology services company, providing the full range of consulting, outsourcing and related technology services.
For instance, in 1991 Accenture began work on one of its first major outsourcing arrangements when the company started managing British Petroleum Exploration’s accounting, finance and support functions from a special center that it established in Aberdeen, Scotland. In 1994 the company established the Accenture Technology Labs—then known as Centers for Strategic Technology—in Palo Alto, California, and Sophia Antipolis, France. As the technology R&D organization within Accenture, the Accenture Technology Labs create a vision of how technology will shape the future and invent the next wave of cutting-edge business solutions. In fact, technological innovation is part of Accenture’s heritage, as the company traces its roots back to 1954 with the installation at General Electric of the first computer for business application.
By 2000, Accenture had achieved more than a decade of tremendous growth, with net revenues exceeding US$9.5 billion and more than 75,000 professionals in 47 countries delivering to clients a broad range of consulting, technology and outsourcing services and solutions.
On Jan. 1, 2001, the company changed its name to Accenture (from Andersen Consulting) as the result of an arbitrator’s decision in August 2000 that severed the contractual ties between Accenture and Andersen Worldwide Société Coopérative (AWSC). Accenture then launched one of the largest and mostsuccessful re-branding campaigns in corporate history. The new name reinforced Accenture’s new positioning and reflected the organization’s further growth and broadened set of capabilities.
By 2001, it became apparent to Accenture’s partners that maintaining the organization’s existing structure—since its inception in 1989, Accenture had operated as a group of locally owned independent partnerships or other entities in more than 40 countries—would limit the company’s ability to continue its growth. Therefore, the partners decided to transition to corporate form, enabling Accento build and acquire the necessary capital to remain competitive and fuel its growth.
In April 2001, Accenture’s partners voted overwhelmingly to pursue an initial public offering, and Accenture became a public company on July 19, 2001, when it listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ACN.
Today Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, identifying new business and technology trends and developing solutions to help clients around the world enter new markets, increase revenues in existing markets, improve operational performance, and deliver their products and services more effectively and efficiently
From its establishment in 1989 until its incorporation in 2001, Accenture (known as Andersen Consulting prior to Jan. 1, 2001) was structured as a group of independent partnerships and corporations, referred to as Accenture “member firms,” in more than 40 countries around the world. Each of the Accenture member firms had separately entered into a contractual agreement with Andersen Worldwide Société Coopérative (AWSC), a Swiss administrative entity responsible for coordinating the practices of the separate Accenture and Arthur Andersen firms. At all times since 1989, Accenture and Arthur Andersen were legally separate, distinct and independent, each with its own management, partners, employees, capital, premises, business, clients and market place images.
In December 1997, Accenture formally requested arbitration with the International Chamber of Commerce and sought termination of its contractual agreements with AWSC, claiming that AWSC had breached its material obligations to Accenture. Specifically, Accenture claimed that AWSC had, among other things, failed to coordinate the practices of the Accenture member firms with those of the Arthur Andersen member firms and to ensure that the Arthur Andersen member firms would not compete with the Accenture member firms.