Please do the needful. What does that mean?

A few days ago I was training a team of techies in Verizon. This team had to email or chat with their American counterparts about their project status, and there were many situations when their messages did not get across correctly because of 'Indianisms' in their language.

One classic example is the expression 'please do the needful'. Most of the emails that the techies wrote were lists of tasks or clarifications that they needed from the Americans. Each email would end with this phrase - please do the needful. To an Indian this sounds perfectly correct, but the American is left wondering what he is expected to do. When writing to an international audience, this phrase is best avoided because it makes no sense to them. Finish the email with exactly what you what the reader to do. It could be phrases like these: Please check and let me know, can you give me more information on this, can you help in resolving these issues, I am waiting to hear your inputs / feedback on this, and so on.
So, the next time you type 'please do the needful', press ctrl z!