Sophos aims for 25% revenue growth in Malaysia this year

• Growth to be driven by all product segments
• Asean fastest growing region last year

IT security solutions provider Sophos Ltd expects sales in Malaysia to grow by 25% this financial year, saying that its focus on the mid-market segment has started to bear fruit.
 
The UK-headquartered company, which was established in 1985, registered a 40% growth in revenue in Malaysia in its last financial year (ended March 31, 2014), according to its director of sales for Asean, Sumit Bansal (pic).
 
“Unlike some other vendors which have a strong focus on the consumer or enterprise segment, we are more focused on the mid-market. Customers have started to realise that we are so focused on the mid-market that our products really make a difference,” he told Digital News Asia (DNA) recently.
 
According to Sumit, while some of the larger IT security vendors are also targeting the mid-market segment, Sophos does not feel threatened and has confidence that its solutions will prevail.
 
“If you look at some of our competitors, they don’t really build products for the mid-market. They build it for the enterprise, and then try to fit those solutions into the mid-market,” he argued.
 
Sumit said he believes that such a strategy will not work on the mid-market segment as these customers generally do not have the IT resources, in particularly manpower, to manage such security solutions.
 
“If you look at our competitors, when they build enterprise products they build it for people who are experts in that particular field – for example, firewall solutions for a firewall administrator.
 
“Whereas when we build a product, we build it for someone who has very little knowledge – they must be able to simply manage and deploy the solution,” he added.
 
Although Sophos is mainly focused on the mid-market segment, which Sumit describes as companies with fewer than 5,000 users, its solutions are used in many large enterprises as well.
 
For example, Malaysian clients include the YTL Group, Elken, the Sabah state government and Sime Darby. It also has customers in industries such as healthcare, education, telecommunications and financial. In fact, one of the country’s largest banks is using its encryption solution, he claimed.
 
According to Sumit, the banking sector, which is facing pressure in areas like regulation and compliance, is expected to be one of the main growth drivers for Sophos’ Malaysian and Asean markets this year.
 
He also expects that the Asean region, the company’s top growth performer in its previous financial year, would continue to grow strongly this financial year.
 
“Asean is a prime market for us because the majority of customers and potential customers are the right size for us,” said Sumit.
 
“This year, expectations are that we will be recording another good growth year,” he declared.
 
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