Charles Cousins, managing director at Sophos Anti-Virus Asia, believes he is back where he belongs - doing business with the corporate sector. A veteran in the information technology industries of Europe and Asia since 1982, Mr Cousins said he felt his career had come full circle after joining Sophos in 2001. 'It is a great opportunity, and I'm very thankful,' he said. He found his five-year stint at another British firm, Psion, whet his appetite for doing business directly with enterprises rather than with consumers. Psion was once the largest maker of personal digital assistants in Europe, competing directly with United States rival Palm and other PDA makers. 'Our products were very competitive and we had a solid strategy moving forward,' Mr Cousins said. However, Mr Cousins, who was Psion's Asia-Pacific managing director at that time, found that electronics consumers were more interested in other things besides solid product features, and Psion's competitors delivered what they wanted. Eventually, Psion moved away from the consumer hardware business and to licensing its software to other consumer electronics manufacturers. Around that time, Mr Cousins thought he had learned enough lessons in the consumer market to make another go at the corporate information technology arena. With an electronic engineering degree from the University of Cambridge and a master's in business administration from the London Business School, Mr Cousins moved to Asia in 1983 with Rank Xerox. The company is now known as Fuji Xerox Asia-Pacific. At Rank Xerox, he was based in Singapore, responsible for sales of electronic typewriters, word processors and laser printers. After his stint with Rank Xerox, Mr Cousins moved to Hong Kong to take on the role of a division manager at Gilman Office Machines. He then returned to Singapore as general manager with telecommunications gear maker Northern Telecom, now known as Nortel Networks. 'The biggest thing to happen to me professionally was when I set up my own business in Singapore,' Mr Cousins said. His graphics and printing company ran for 10 years before he joined Psion. At Sophos, Mr Cousins is convinced that the firm's solid track record, strong technologies and consistent high-quality support has helped it generate growing business worldwide. 'Companies listen to these things more,' he said. 'Despite stiff competition in the Internet security software market, we've successfully delivered our message across our target markets.' Products developed by Sophos are sold and supported in more than 150 countries through a network of subsidiaries and partners. More than 60 per cent of the company's worldwide turnover comes from outside Britain. It has more than 10 million licensed corporate users worldwide. 'Security breaches of all kinds, especially virus infections, result in bad publicity for a company. 'Organisations can also suffer significant economic losses due to virus attacks, something that is particularly worrying in today's tough economic environment,' Mr Cousins said. 'Anti-virus software plays a major part in subverting these threats along with formulating a safe computing policy for companies.'
