Meeting the Challenge of Change – Report of the CICA Long-Range Strategic Planning Committee (1986)

A 1986 report by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) states (on page 5): “The Canadian CA profession - like the accounting profession worldwide - is facing fundamental and pervasive change. Led primarily by the rapidly evolving information technology that is revolutionizing business operations, but due also to altered perceptions about the value of the traditional attest audit, the role of chartered accountants in society - whatever their area of practice - is changing dramatically. CAs in public practice face new and increasing demands from their clients for services extending beyond those related to historical financial information and income tax advice and toward future-oriented information necessary for economic decision making. In the process, the CAs role is expanding from that of reporter and analyst of past events to communicator and adviser about business information affecting the future.”

The report further states: “CAs outside public practice - those in industry and government, for example - are no less subject to these demands, albeit from their employers. And CAs in education must face the challenging task of educating the profession's future members to meet this challenge. In an effort to manage change and provide strategic directions for our profession, the CICA Board of Governors formed the Long-Range Strategic Planning Committee in February 1984. Over the past two years, our assessment of these changes, via member and user surveys, focus groups, committee research, literature review and presentations at CICA and provincial institute conferences, has led us to develop an exciting vision of what the CA profession might become over the next 10 to 20 years. It is a vision of a more broadly-based profession whose highly-skilled members are the recognized experts in meeting the needs of an information society.”

The Committee’s conclusions are summarized in a mission statement and 14 specific strategic proposals. These proposals and the overall strategic direction are interrelated and should be looked on as a total concept. To learn more, read Meeting the Challenge of Change – Report of the CICA Long-Range Strategic Planning Committee (1986). Because of its multi-coloured front cover, it is commonly referred to as the “Rainbow Report.”