Andersen to foray into consulting business, says CEO Mark L Vorsatz

New firm to provide services in India and other countries; area of work 'will never include auditing', says Vorsatz

The US-based Andersen group will set up a new firm, Andersen Consulting, to provide advisory services in emerging fields, such as business management and strategy, technology, cyber security, business transformation and talent hiring, in India and other countries.

“We will possibly even look at business process outsourcing,” Mark L Vorsatz, Andersen’s global chairman and chief executive officer, told Business Standard. “Our area of work will never include auditing,” he added.

Vorsatz, in Delhi to hold a two-day meeting beginning Friday on the group's strategy for west Asia, central Asia, Asia Pacific and India, said Andersen Consulting would be a separate entity but would have profit- and cost-sharing with existing Andersen Global.

Andersen Global is a tax and legal services advisory firm with more than 12,000 professionals and 1,800 partners across the world. In India, it has Nangia Andersen LLP as its member partner on tax advisory, and Vaish and Associates as a collaborating partner on legal consulting.

“We hope to set it up by the end of 2023. Andersen Consulting will have tie-ups with local partners in India. We have started discussions with them,” Vorsatz said. He said the group thought there were emerging areas in the consulting business and wanted to tap them. About the existing firm’s business of tax and legal advisory, Vorsatz said it had expanded its geographical reach to almost full. It has operations in 174 countries with 384 offices.

The only two countries in Asia where Andersen is still not present are China and Japan. “We are working on those countries. Some of the bigger markets take longer. India took us almost three years. We have shortlisted firms in China and Japan. I hope that by the end of 2023, we will have offices in both countries,” Vorsatz said.

When asked whether a possible global recession and the current geopolitical tensions would delay Andersen’s efforts for expansion, he said notwithstanding the war in Ukraine and issues between the US and China, companies would continue to expand globally.

“And having fast-growing capabilities is very important for the services employer which is why we have expanded our geographical presence. We think clients want one service provider, other things being equal, so that they get integrated services," he said.

Contrary to apprehensions that the pandemic would slow down the firm’s growth, it has rather expanded it, he said. To buttress his point, he said: Andersen added about 40 firms in 2019, a pre-Covid year; 60 in the Covid year of 2020; and 49 in the second wave-marred 2021. “We’ve added 30 firms till September in 2022,” he said.

Rakesh Nangia, chairman of Nangia Andersen LLP, said, “Our growth model will continue to accelerate. We plan to hire 1,000 professionals in the next two years.”

In its earlier avatar, Arthur Andersen collapsed in 2002 due to questionable accounting practices for energy company Enron and telecommunications company Worldcom.