Wikipedia Deep Dive

Accenture

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The Consulting Giant That Escaped a Scandal

In the summer of 2002, the accounting firm Arthur Andersen was indicted for obstruction of justice. The firm had shredded documents related to Enron, the energy company whose spectacular collapse had wiped out billions in shareholder value and employee retirement savings. Within months, Arthur Andersen would cease to exist, its 85,000 employees scattered to the winds.

But there was another company that had been part of the same corporate family just two years earlier. A company that had narrowly escaped the blast radius of one of the largest corporate scandals in American history. That company was Accenture.

The story of how Accenture came to exist—and why it wasn't destroyed alongside its former parent—is a tale of corporate divorce, bitter arbitration, and remarkably fortuitous timing.

From Accounting Machines to Computing Pioneers

The origins of Accenture trace back to the early 1950s, when Arthur Andersen was simply an accounting firm. But the partners at Arthur Andersen saw something that most accountants missed: the potential of electronic computing to transform business.

In what would prove to be a pivotal moment, the firm conducted a feasibility study for General Electric. The question was straightforward: Could GE install a computer at its Appliance Park facility in Louisville, Kentucky? The answer was yes, and GE proceeded to install a UNIVAC I—the Universal Automatic Computer, one of the first commercially produced computers in the United States.

This wasn't just a consulting engagement. It was arguably the first commercial use of a computer in American business. Arthur Andersen had stumbled into the future.

Over the following decades, the business and technology consulting division of Arthur Andersen grew into something substantial. By the late 1980s, it had become large enough and profitable enough to warrant its own identity. In 1989, Arthur Andersen and this consulting division—now called Andersen Consulting—became separate units under a Swiss coordinating entity called Andersen Worldwide Société Coopérative.

A Family Feud Over Money

The 1989 split was supposed to create harmony. Instead, it planted the seeds for a bitter decade-long dispute.

The arrangement included a peculiar provision: whichever unit was more profitable would pay fifteen percent of its earnings to the other. This was meant to be fair. In practice, it meant that Andersen Consulting—which was rapidly becoming the cash cow of the family—was writing large checks to Arthur Andersen year after year.

And here's where the resentment festered. Arthur Andersen wasn't content to simply collect its fifteen percent. The accounting firm decided to compete directly with its own sibling by launching something called Arthur Andersen Business Consulting.

Imagine paying your brother a substantial portion of your income while he simultaneously tries to steal your customers. That was the situation Andersen Consulting found itself in throughout the 1990s.

In 1998, the consulting firm had finally had enough. It stopped making the transfer payments, putting the money into escrow instead, and filed a claim for breach of contract. The matter went to arbitration.

The ruling came down in 2000: Andersen Consulting could break all ties with Arthur Andersen and the Swiss parent entity. But freedom came with a price tag. The consultants had to pay 1.2 billion dollars to walk away.

It was an enormous sum. It also turned out to be the best money the company ever spent.

A Name Designed to Mean Nothing

There was a catch to the arbitration settlement. Andersen Consulting could leave the family, but it couldn't take the family name. The company needed a new identity, and quickly.

The solution came from an unlikely source: a Danish employee working in the firm's Oslo, Norway office. Kim Petersen submitted the name "Accenture," a portmanteau meant to suggest "Accent on the future."

What made this name appealing to the global firm? Precisely that it meant nothing. Petersen's hope was that "Accenture" would not be offensive in any country where the company operated. Because the word was essentially invented, it carried no baggage, no unfortunate associations, no accidental meanings in foreign languages.

On January 1, 2001, Andersen Consulting became Accenture. The company incorporated in Bermuda and began preparing for an initial public offering.

Six months later, on July 19, 2001, Accenture shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange at fourteen dollars and fifty cents per share.

And then came Enron.

The Scandal That Killed Arthur Andersen

Enron Corporation had been one of the most admired companies in America. It claimed to be revolutionizing energy trading. In reality, it was hiding billions of dollars in debt through accounting tricks and fraudulent partnerships.

When Enron collapsed in late 2001, investigators turned their attention to the company's auditor: Arthur Andersen. Not only had the accounting firm signed off on Enron's misleading financial statements, but employees had also destroyed documents after learning of a federal investigation.

In June 2002, Arthur Andersen was convicted of obstruction of justice. The conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court, but by then it didn't matter. The firm's clients had fled. Its reputation was destroyed. Arthur Andersen, once one of the "Big Five" accounting firms, essentially ceased to exist.

Because Accenture had completed its separation in 2000, it was legally and operationally distinct from Arthur Andersen when the scandal broke. The 1.2 billion dollar payment had bought not just independence, but survival.

The Tax Haven Question

Accenture's Bermuda incorporation raised eyebrows in Washington. In October 2002, the Congressional General Accounting Office published a report identifying Accenture as one of four publicly traded federal contractors incorporated in tax havens.

Critics, including the prominent CNN journalist Lou Dobbs, accused Accenture of incorporating offshore specifically to avoid American taxes. They argued that the company was essentially American and was using its Bermuda address as a legal fiction to reduce its tax burden.

The General Accounting Office took a more nuanced view. It noted that before the Bermuda incorporation, Accenture hadn't really been a United States company at all. It had operated as a complex web of partnerships and corporations held together by contracts with the Swiss coordinating entity. Unlike other companies on the list, Accenture hadn't moved from America to a tax haven—it had arguably never been incorporated in America in the first place.

Nevertheless, the optics weren't great. In 2009, Accenture announced it would shift its incorporation from Bermuda to Ireland. Dublin became the company's official headquarters.

Ireland, it should be noted, is also known for its favorable corporate tax policies. But it's a member of the European Union and carries rather different connotations than a Caribbean island.

The Business of Managing Everything

So what exactly does Accenture do?

The short answer is: consulting. The longer answer requires understanding how enormous and varied the modern consulting industry has become.

Accenture organizes its work into five major segments. Strategy and Consulting is the traditional advisory work—helping companies figure out what to do. Technology involves building and implementing technical systems. Operations means running business processes on behalf of clients—essentially outsourcing. Accenture Song, formerly called Interactive, handles marketing and customer experience work. And Industry X focuses on manufacturing and engineering services.

In June 2025, the company announced a reorganization. Four of these segments—Strategy, Consulting, Song, and Operations—would merge into a new unit called Reinvention Services. Only Industry X would remain separate.

The company serves clients across virtually every sector: communications, media, technology, financial services, healthcare, government and public services, consumer products, and natural resources. If a large organization exists, there's a good chance Accenture has done work for it.

How large is Accenture itself? As of 2024, the company reported approximately 774,000 employees and revenues of 64.9 billion dollars. To put that in perspective, Accenture employs more people than the entire population of Seattle. Its annual revenue exceeds the gross domestic product of many countries.

When Projects Go Wrong

With a company this large, taking on projects this complex, failures are inevitable. Several of Accenture's missteps have become cautionary tales in the consulting industry.

In 2003, Accenture took on a massive information technology overhaul for the British National Health Service. The NHS is one of the largest healthcare organizations in the world, serving the entire population of the United Kingdom. Modernizing its computer systems was an audacious undertaking.

It did not go well.

By 2006, Accenture withdrew from the contract entirely, citing disputes over delays and cost overruns. The British government struggled on for five more years before ultimately abandoning the project. The NHS IT program became one of the most expensive failed technology projects in history.

More recently, in 2018, Accenture won a contract to recruit 7,500 officers for United States Customs and Border Protection. The contract was worth 297 million dollars.

Ten months into the contract, Accenture had been paid 13.6 million dollars. The number of agents it had successfully hired? Two.

The mathematics were stark. The government was paying nearly forty thousand dollars per hire—more than the annual salary of the average border officer. The Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General issued what's called a "management alert," indicating a problem requiring immediate attention. The contract was terminated in 2019.

The Human Cost of Content Moderation

Among Accenture's many lines of business is content moderation—reviewing the posts, images, and videos that users upload to social media platforms to determine what violates community guidelines.

This work involves looking at the worst things human beings do to each other. Murder. Child abuse. Animal cruelty. Hate speech. The psychological toll on the people doing this work has become increasingly apparent.

In February 2019, contractors at Accenture's Austin, Texas facility who performed content moderation for Facebook wrote an open letter describing their working conditions. They described a "Big Brother environment" with restricted bathroom breaks and strict non-disclosure agreements. A counselor at the Austin office told reporters that the moderators could develop post-traumatic stress disorder from the work.

Years later, in February 2025, Vice News spoke with a former Accenture employee who had worked on the WhatsApp team for Meta. His job required him to look at images and determine whether they depicted child sexual abuse.

He coped, he said, through substance abuse.

The former employee claimed to have witnessed multiple missed opportunities to protect children and alleged that one colleague had previously been arrested for possessing child abuse materials.

Accenture, in response, said it is "committed to helping companies keep their platforms safe."

A Company of Its Time

Accenture's recent history reflects the broader currents of corporate America.

In August 2021, the company confirmed a ransomware attack—a type of cyberattack where criminals encrypt a victim's data and demand payment for its return. Approximately six terabytes of data were reportedly stolen.

In March 2023, as technology companies across the industry announced layoffs following the pandemic hiring boom, Accenture said it would eliminate 19,000 jobs over eighteen months.

And in February 2025, following an executive order from President Trump targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at federal contractors, Accenture made significant changes to its policies. The company discontinued its global employee representation goals and certain demographic-focused career development programs. It paused participation in external diversity benchmarking surveys and reevaluated its external partnerships.

The company stood to lose billions of dollars in federal contracts if it didn't comply with the executive order. It chose to comply.

The View from 2024

Despite the controversies, the failed projects, and the layoffs, Accenture remains enormously successful by conventional financial measures.

Between 2015 and 2024, an investor who bought Accenture stock would have earned returns of approximately 370 percent, including dividends. That's better than the Standard and Poor's 500 index. Better than Goldman Sachs.

Since 2013, Accenture has acquired over 200 companies, constantly expanding its capabilities and reach.

Julie Sweet, who became chief executive in 2019, oversees an organization that touches almost every sector of the global economy. Her predecessors—William Green, Pierre Nanterme, and interim chief executive David Rowland—built the company into what it is today.

For those who study corporate history, Accenture offers an unusual case study. It's a company that exists, in large part, because of a messy divorce that happened to conclude just before its former sibling was destroyed by scandal. It's a company that has been criticized for tax avoidance, for failed government contracts, for the psychological damage inflicted on its workers.

And yet it thrives.

Perhaps that tells us something about the nature of large consulting firms. They are resilient precisely because they are diverse, diffuse, and difficult to pin down. They can fail spectacularly on individual projects while the larger organization continues to grow. They can weather scandals that would destroy more focused enterprises.

The name "Accenture" was chosen because it meant nothing. But over two decades, it has come to mean something after all: a very particular kind of corporate success, with all the ambiguity that implies.