The Institute had constituted Committee on Vision and Restructuring in 1998 to carry out a historic exercise of revisiting the profession and to make an attempt towards repositioning of the Institute and the profession of Chartered Accountants in this century. The Committee came out with a Vision Statement comprising the mission, vision and core values for the profession. A detailed Vision Document titled "Vision for the 21st Century" was prepared by the Committee and released on September 13, 2000 for public dissemination.

The Committee conducted surveys, interviews and brainstorming sessions based on the Vision Document across the country and had an insight into the attitudes and perceptions of the profession. A broad spectrum of data and variety of perspectives were gathered through many future forums/workshops held at different places.

I appreciate the achievement of the Committee, which took the shape of this Report, wherein the implementation Business Plan has been very scientifically translated into action points, which was not an easy task. These action points were delegated to respective Committee of the Council.

My sincere thanks are due to Shri S. Gopalakrishnan, FCA, who took the charge of this massive and historic exercise and worked continuously for four years to formulate the strategies for confidently positioning the profession in the turbulent economic phase of 21st century. I would recall my days in the Committee as member and those brainstorming sessions with the then Presidents, Vice-Presidents and the Council members, when he was visualising the present day scenario three- four years back. Not only this, without waiting for the entire Report of the Committee to come, he individually impressed upon the President, Vice-President, Committee members and other Council members to introduce many things and for that, he was using a term 'big bang approach', emphasising that the Institute cannot wait till the finalisation of the Report because by the time the Report would come, we would be at a step three year back. Constitution of Committee on Information Technology, Committee on Trade Laws and WTO and Committee on Insurance were the products of such big bang approach. Besides these, Restructuring of syllabus of Information Technology portion in the C.A. Course and many other recommendations of Committee for Review of Education and Training (CRET) were also taken care of under a similar approach of the Committee and modified accordingly.

I would also like to thank members of the Committee on Vision and Restructuring, Past Presidents, Past Council members and all those who have participated in this exercise.

Dr. Ashok Haldia, Secretary of the Institute, was basically the power behind the punch. He has contributed a lot - not only in providing all Secretariat support from the Institute but also added many innovative ideas that have helped the Committee, resulting in the final Action Points which have been translated from the strategic plan.

On behalf of the Institute and the Council, I would also thank Dr. M.B. Athreya for advising the Committee on this exercise.

I hope that various Committees would take initiatives with great enthusiasm to implement the recommendation of the Committee.