As we move into fiscal year 2007, we remain very sensitive to the need for quality and efficiency in service and solutions delivery. We believe that if we continue to focus unremittingly on quality technical guidance, quality people and quality service—then we will continue to attract and retain brand-defining clients.

Looking further ahead, our challenge is to continue building a sustainable enterprise that is the envy of the solutions and services Industry. This means being distinguished by the quality and reliability of our service offerings, the consistency with which we deliver those services and the innovative thinking we bring to clients’ most pressing problems. At the same time, we believe in being at the forefront of our efforts to enhance the relevance and value of the entire industry to its stakeholders. We believe in leading the drive to restore public trust through convergence around clear, principles-based global accounting standards and new financial reporting models that provide meaningful, forward-looking information.

These are tough challenges, but with a renewed commitment to our core values of excellence, leadership and teamwork, we are confident that we can meet them and in fact exceed them.

Pervasive trend that is being witnessed today is the global convergence—and not just the globalization of business but also the way it is regulated. National regulators and standard setters are talking to one another, and as a result, standards and regulatory schemes are converging. Irrespective of the different standards that we would have to adopt to comply with local laws all around the world, while at the same time interact with diverse demographic identities of our clients, we would serve with a consistent level of quality and service that has since been the hallmark of our successful implementations and of our growth.

We regard it as our obligation to clients to meet these demands consistently across the network. A further, very powerful trend that we see is a steady tilting of the balance of global power and resources toward developing economies—particularly China, India, Russia and Brazil, as well as other developing economies that are just beginning to emerge as potential powerhouses in the coming years. We are very well positioned to leverage the growth in these emerging economies to our and our customer’s benefit. This rebalancing of the global equation has broad implications for our clients regarding how they will structure and manage their businesses going forward. It suggests that the old model—companies based in developed economies sourcing their commodity needs and basic production in low-cost economies—is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

In a recent report by a leading research firm, it is predicted that emerging economies would soon outpace the traditional developed economies and that within the next 40 or so years we would see a massive shift in the balance of economic power.

We are already beginning to see the impact of this shift. There are Lukoil (Russian Oil Giant) petrol stations in New York City. A Chinese company that has announced its intention to manufacture the cars in Nebraska now owns one of the most famous British auto marques.

And companies that, as recently as 1998, did not rate India or for that matter Asia-Pacific highly as an investment destination are now not only investing there but also extending their activities beyond ‘traditional’ areas into complex processes. These changes are transforming the management and risk environment both for our clients and for us as a total solution provider.

Against this backdrop, we understand the need to do more to build the right type and scale of solutions to meet our client needs, to reflect the shifting focus we see in their operations, to ensure consistent quality and to keep pace with the growing cultural diversity and emergence of new economies.

We deploy better solutions by leveraging our capabilities of deeper insight and a focused to problem solving and providing top of the solutions and services.