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GREENSBORO - Constantly updating the personal computer would be enough of a challenge for any company, but Lenovo takes a new view of international business.

"It's time to rethink the world map," said William J. Amelio, Lenovo's chief executive officer, "rethink the world landscape, so to speak."

"Global 2.0" is Lenovo's name for a world that is vastly different from the one in which its two parent companies began selling PCs in the 1980s.

The new world, Amelio told a group of business leaders at UNCG's Business Summit Tuesday, is wealthier, more educated and less centralized.

• The middle class is rising dramatically: By 2020, Amelio said, China's middle class is expected to rise sevenfold to 700 million people. And that's despite the financial crisis, he said.
• Emerging economies will cover 85 percent of world population.
• Emerging economies will produce 50 percent of the global gross domestic product.
• Emerging economies will feature strong domestic consumption.

And in all of those markets, Lenovo must develop and sell computers to people who are craving connectivity because information won't recognize borders and nations as it flows freely around the globe.

"Old concepts no longer make sense," he said. "'Outsourcing' and 'offshoring' are outdated. ... Global business is everywhere."

It doesn't matter where a product is made, he said, because it's used somewhere in the world.

"The stamp on the back of the box is just the last step in a complex journey that the product has been through," Amelio said.

Lenovo, a $16 billion company, operates a decentralized system of leaders throughout the world who have authority to make big decisions.

"We operate in a time zone called 'now,'" he said. "Our structures, our resources, our ideas are flat and very mobile."

A key to the company's operations is right here in Guilford County. Lenovo opened a distribution assembly plant with 160 workers in February in Whitsett.

A Chinese company that bought IBM's personal computing business in 2005, Lenovo chose the Greensboro area because the city has a nearly perfect combination of educational opportunities, transportation and workers with good skills, company officials said.

For some customers, a PC is a PC. Delivery and service can make the difference, Amelio said. That's why the company located here.

"Eighty to 90 percent of our value-added depends on the supply chain," he said.

"Having the logistics hub here..." Amelio said, "helps us to attract and keep customers."

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com