Growth is expected to recover soonest in India and China, whilst on the issue of whether national governments should be interceeding with stimulus and packages, executives’ enthusiasm has definitely been tempered since the last snapshot.

The statistics on how long this might last echo Alchemy Partners’ John Moulton on Radio 4’s Today programme earlier this week. Moulton suggested that this downturn might be “L-shaped”. The McKinsey snapshot concludes by saying, “Overall, executives’ medium-term expectations for their companies’ profits and workforces remain depressed: 55 percent expect profits to decrease in the first half of 2009, and 52 percent expect to decrease the size of their workforces in the same span (in March 2009 the numbers were 53 percent and 50 percent, respectively). Though business isn’t good, the survey results also indicate that company finances are, for the most part, sufficient without new external funding. Most companies aren’t seeking external funding; only 29 percent have done so since September 2008. ”

 So, as Richard Holway said in my interview with him last week, we are in for the long haul and IT marketers should be looking in detail at their customer and prospect data, and creating propositions that can resonate for each of them in this climate.