Mckinseyquarterly.com, the Web incarnation of The McKinsey Quarterly, now has more than one million registered members. These executives, academics, students, and policy makers hail from more than 100 countries around the world and last year read 2.5 million articles on the site.

A great success, but so far it has been a one-way conversation with our readers. We know which articles they are interested in, and we study the e-mails and letters they send us, but ultimately they know a lot more about our thinking than we know about theirs.

This year we have begun to make it a two-way conversation.

We surveyed our readers for the first time in January, gauging their views on the overall business climate and exploring global economic trends such as outsourcing, foreign direct investment, and talent.¹ In May, just after the Congress Party's stunning victory in India's general election, we conducted our second survey, which tracked the overall global business climate and examined trends in China, India, and IT spending.

This special edition of the Quarterly is devoted to reporting the most recent survey results and provides articles and interviews that explore the themes raised by our readers. We believe that this combination—a snapshot of what global executives think paired with new research that provides context and additional insights—uniquely advances the debate on important business topics.

In this issue, we report and analyze the results of the most recent survey. And we follow up with in-depth pieces about three of the most important challenges global executives face today.

Diana Farrell and Adil S. Zainulbhai examine the path forward for the Indian economy in "A richer future for India." The country's recent economic experiences and those of its Asian neighbors show that persistent rural poverty stems not from too much reform but rather from too little. Removing barriers to foreign direct investment and global trade is vital if India is to continue integrating itself into the global economy and raising its standard of living across the board.

In "Understanding the Chinese consumer," Jacques Penhirin interviews Laurent Philippe, the head of Procter & Gamble's operation in China, to discover what a leading consumer products company is doing to segment and serve the growing Chinese market. We also look at the country's broader economic trends in "A guide to doing business in China," by Jonathan R. Woetzel.

Last, Kendall B. Davis, Anna S. Rath, and Brian L. Scanlon examine "How IT spending is changing." After three years of decline, corporate expenditure on IT products and services is rising and an unprecedented echo effect of the Internet boom is dramatically lifting the revenues of some technology companies. Chief information officers are eager to replace outdated hardware and to make their systems more resilient and secure. Many are investing in new software development, though big packaged applications are out of fashion.

In addition, we include an appendix with detailed data that support the synthesized views represented in our opening essay. Almost 5,500 readers from 113 countries participated in the survey. These men and women hold senior management positions at small, midsize, and large companies across a broad range of industries. We believe the respondents are a unique group that represents what sophisticated businesspeople around the world are thinking. We look forward to hearing their views on a regular basis.