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Continuous innovation and rapid transformation have been themes throughout Accenture's history. Established in 1989 primarily as a technology consultant and systems integrator, Accenture soon began offering a new breed of business integration solutions to clients—solutions that aligned organizations' technologies, processes and people with their strategies.

Throughout its history, Accenture has expanded its offerings and capitalized on evolving management trends and technologies to benefit its clients. The company pioneered systems integration and business integration; led the deployment of enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and electronic services; and has established itself as a leader in today's global marketplace.

Joe W. Forehand, a partner with 30 years of experience, was named CEO in November 1999 and chairman of Accenture's board of directors in February 2001. Under Forehand's leadership, Accenture became a public company in July 2001 when it listed on the New York Stock Exchange. After nearly five years as CEO, Mr. Forehand stepped down from that position on Sep. 1, 2004, retaining the position of chairman. He was succeeded as CEO by William D. Green, a partner with more than 26 years of experience at Accenture, who had previously served as chief operating officer—Client Services.

IPO
Accenture's banner hanging on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) building for its initial public offering on 19 July 2001.On 2001-07-19, Accenture offered initial public offering (IPO) at the price of $14.50 per share in New York Stock Exchange (NYSE); Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley served as its lead underwriters. Accenture stock closed the day at $15.17, with the day's high at $15.25. On the first day of the IPO, Accenture raised nearly 1.7 billion dollars.

Today Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with net revenues of US$16.65 billion for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2006

Enron and the Accenture name
Source : wikipedia
There is a misconception that the Accenture name change was simply the consulting firm's attempt to "hide" from the Enron scandal. This is not accurate given the timing of events. The split from Arthur Andersen was requested by the consulting side in 1998, and finally awarded in 2000; the Enron scandal (starting with the reporting of the infamous "LJM Partnerships") did not occur until well into 2001, with the scandal culminating in the months after that.

In reality planning for a new name was underway before the arbitration decision was announced (Andersen Consulting partners felt that the word "Consulting" in the name was a drawback, since the firm was moving into non-consulting work such as outsourcing and ventures). Interestingly, internal Arthur Andersen emails in 2001 sent to all employees discussed future plans for Arthur Andersen to move ahead in the market with 3 names: Andersen Tax, Andersen Audit, and Andersen Consulting now that they had ownership over the name. Arthur Andersen was never able to revive the "Andersen Consulting" name since it was brought down by the Enron scandal before doing so. Accenture is typically listed in the top 100 corporate brands [6], so the name change appears to have been a positive for the consulting firm. The fact that it is disassociated from the Arthur Andersen name certainly proved to be a positive after the Arthur Andersen Enron scandal.