- Mark Dolliver

NEW YORK With consumers' confidence hitting new lows, one would expect to see similar despondency among the people who want to sell them stuff. A global survey by McKinsey & Co. finds a more mixed outlook, though, among executives at companies of various sorts. While scarcely upbeat about the direction of the economy, many executives see their own companies "holding their ground" and even seizing opportunities created by the downturn.

Conducted early last month among executives at public and private companies in a range of industries, the polling found 38 percent of respondents expecting their own profits to increase this fiscal year. Forty-three percent expect a decrease in profits, and 12 percent think they'll hold steady. (The rest didn't know one way or another.) Among respondents in North America, "increase" beat "decrease" by a percentage point (39 percent vs. 38 percent). In Europe, by contrast, "decrease" outpointed "increase" by 50 percent to 33 percent. In Asia-Pacific (which, for this report, includes Hong Kong but not China as a whole), slightly more respondents said they foresee a decrease than an increase (43 percent vs. 39 percent) in their own company's  profits.

There was a marked difference in confidence between big publicly traded companies and smaller privately held ones. At the former, executives in the poll were much more likely to see a decrease than an increase in their own company's profits this fiscal year (48 percent vs. 33 percent). At the latter, "decrease" just narrowly exceeded "increase" in the responses (38 percent vs. 36 percent). As you might expect, respondents in the financial-services industry were particularly downbeat: They were twice as likely to foresee a decrease as an increase in their company profits (54 percent vs. 26 percent). In the professional-services sector, though, "increase" outpointed "decrease" (43 percent vs. 35 percent). "Increase" also topped "decrease" among responses from executives in the high-tech/telecom sector (44 percent vs. 35 percent).

The survey indicates a significant number of companies have tried to turn the broad economy's woes to their own advantage. Among steps taken by their own company (or planned for the rest of 2008) in response to the "global economic turmoil," 34 percent of respondents cited the introduction of new products or services "to gain market share from weakened competitors." Twenty-two percent mentioned seeking "merger or acquisition opportunities." Sixteen percent cited hiring "talent that would not have been available otherwise."

Still, amid whatever cheerfulness respondents can muster about their own companies, the survey finds them "very gloomy about national, and global economic trends." Sixty-five percent think economic conditions in their own country will be worse in the first quarter of 2009 than they are now. "Two-thirds of respondents also expect to see a decrease in their industries' growth rates, and 54 percent expect industry consolidation, although only 7 percent expect to face competition from new entrants in their industries," says the report.

When will economic conditions in general get better? Just 13 percent of global respondents expect a turnaround in the first half of next year, and 46 percent think happy days won't be here again until "2010 or later." Executives in North America were the most likely to see an upturn coming by the end of 2009, with 57 percent voicing that opinion.