'With China's rapidly growing economy and further market-oriented development, there will be more and more Chinese enterprises that'll become successful. Then, after, they will internationalise,' Lenovo chairman Yang Yuanqing said in an interview with the South China Morning Post. 'I think from this point of view, you can say our deal is a landmark deal,' he added.

But beneath the fanfare and even with the IBM assets in the bag, Mr Yang said the work had only just begun, on the back of the relentless challenge to win over sceptics and secure investor interests.

Twelve months after the deal, the outlook for Hong Kong-listed Lenovo looks favourable - the stock has gained 56 per cent since the beginning of the year. This compared with the month following the deal's announcement, when share prices dropped nearly 20 per cent.

Stock performance, as Lenovo management insists, doesn't reflect a company's real strength. Instead, they persuade investors to recognise a business strategy aimed at ensuring stable and long-term returns from the enlarged company, such as the 22 per cent increase in net profit to $354 million in the third quarter to September, and the 404 per cent surge in turnover to $28.5 billion.

Mr Yang brushes off concerns about his team's ability to create synergies from merging the two businesses from different cultures, and the time needed to realise corporate goals.

Granted, even with the more than two decades of economic reforms on the mainland, much of the developed world still believe mainland enterprises personify inefficiency and nepotism, and lack technology.

But while frequent reports of poor transparency and non-profit-driven managers perpetuate those beliefs, the mainland has been nurturing a growing breed of market-oriented players.

'When I first started, I thought this [culture clash] was the biggest issue, too,' Mr Yang said. 'But in reality, over the process of reorganising, I felt management is more important.

'Your understanding of the business [operations], the industry, and the corporate culture ... are [conditions] for success. Then, you must have a good strategy and be determined to see it through. These are probably two elements for an enterprise to succeed.'

Mr Yang said Lenovo shifted its business philosophy after an ill-fated strategy of diversification and a focus on the domestic market between 2001 and 2003.

Amid the global dotcom bubble, Lenovo began to pump resources into sectors such as mobile phones, internet-related business and information technology services. The technology joy ride was short-lived as competition at home grew ferociously with the mainland's entry into the World Trade Organisation, eating into Lenovo's bottom line.

Such competition forced China's biggest PC maker to review its strategy as 'the differences in competing in every sector were huge'.

Mr Yang said the cost of such diversification in an altered market was enormous. For several months that year, he and his senior managers held many closed-door meetings to assess and reassess their goals, before agreeing to go back to square one and focus on what the company had always done well - making PCs and related products.

With that decision, the goal was 'to return to the former profit-making model that ensured a four to five percentage point earnings growth', Mr Yang said.

'On the one hand, we'd optimise our advantages in the domestic market, on the other, use it to 'attack' the international market,' he said.

Two years later, Mr Yang is reticent when asked the price tag of the 2003 lesson. 'Of course there was one, but it's one we could manage,' he said. 'This kind of experience is invaluable as we learned what strategy is about, and the need to build a good one.'

Armed with this new-found business wisdom, Lenovo now operates on a three-pronged business model focused on market potential of its business units, core competitiveness and resources.

The IBM acquisition quickly raised Lenovo's ranking in the global PC industry to No3, making at least 14 million units a year and with annual revenue of US$13 billion.

In October, Fortune ranked 41-year-old Mr Yang among Asia's 25 most powerful people - at No21.

The magazine said Mr Yang's biggest task was 'making good on last year's acquisition of IBM's ThinkPad division'.

'So far he has spearheaded the company's successful bid to sponsor and provide all computers for the 2006 Winter Olympics [in Torino] and 2008 Olympics [in Beijing]. He has also made sales to Russia, Brazil, and the Middle East - where Dell and HP don't have much of a presence - top priorities,' the report said.

Lenovo said similarities between the developing economies in Brazil, India and the mainland meant it was easier to duplicate a sales formula that had secured a 30 per cent market share for the company at home.

The company wants to expand sales to retail customers including small- to medium-sized companies which currently account for a quarter of total sales. The bulk comes from big corporate clients.

This weighting however, contradicted the make-up of the global PC market, where retail customers account for 60 per cent of sales, Mr Yang said. In the cutthroat PC market, products need to not only be trendy, but also reflect advanced technology.

Nevertheless, Lenovo appears to be on track to grow, if third-quarter numbers are any indication. The International Data Corp reported last month the company shipped 4.07 million units in the quarter, a 13 per cent rise from the year-earlier quarter.

The IDC said Lenovo led the region's third-quarter growth in PC shipments, with a 20.4 per cent market share, up from 12.8 per cent a year earlier.

Lenovo executives claimed the numbers showed the enlarged company was 'achieving its potential'. That potential covers not only commercial stakes but, more significantly, the test as to whether Lenovo could change the way the rest of the world views mainland enterprises and goods 'made in China'.

To this end, the chairman said he found the pressure doubly hard, because he believed Lenovo's image stood for all of China's corporate world.

China is the world's biggest factory, the manufacturing base for the biggest international names such as Nike, Nokia and Motorola. In contrast, home-grown brands - with the exception of Tsingtao Beer and a handful of others - have not quite made it out of the country.

'Chinese brands have always lagged image-wise in the global market,' Mr Yang said. 'It's more like [they are perceived as] low-priced and low-quality.

'We need to tell [the world] that we are a global brand.'

To support the claim, Mr Yang has moved his office to New York. According to mainland press reports, the chairman has been taking lessons to brush up on his English.

Mr Yang recommends other mainland executives strictly assess their business and management abilities before expanding abroad.

'Have you reached international standards? If so, then you should bravely take the big leap,' he said. 'And in the subsequent reorganisation, play out your advantages and strengths fully.'

However, in September, an Economist Intelligence Unit report said the bulk of mainland companies were small and medium-sized enterprises that lacked the capacity to venture abroad. The EIU surveyed 176 firms across 16 industries that had annual revenues of between 100 million yuan and 50 billion yuan.

And even for those that are equipped for overseas expansion and backed by the State Council, such as CNOOC, the risks are high. CNOOC was forced to withdraw its US$18.5 billion all-cash bid for Unocal on US political opposition, despite surpassing Chevron's rival offer of US$17.3 billion.