A 50-person software company faced a hard regulatory deadline: achieve ISO 27001 certification by June 1 or lose customer contracts. When their fractional CISO disengaged after months of inaction, they had no compliance tooling, no audit relationship, and no infrastructure in place. With a motivated InfoSec Lead driving the evaluation and a clear architectural preference already formed, the company moved from first conversation to signed contract in 30 days, choosing a compliance-first platform over a vendor-management-first alternative before the first pricing discussion had even begun.
[ The Problem ]
A June Deadline, a Departed CISO, and Nothing to Show for It
The compliance program had been outsourced to a fractional CISO who spent months at $200 per hour without completing foundational setup. Apple Business Manager was unverified, Okta was incomplete, and MDM configuration was only partially done. When that relationship dissolved, the company was left with a hard certification deadline and zero compliance infrastructure.
Customers were already sending security questionnaires, and the answer was always the same: no SOC 2, no ISO documentation, no certification. The business consequence was direct: other companies were showing them the door. Manual tracking on spreadsheets was not a viable path to ISO 27001 in five months for a team of 50.
[ What they needed ]
The InfoSec Lead needed to accomplish several things simultaneously under a fixed deadline:
- Achieve ISO 27001 certification before a hard June 1 regulatory cutoff
- Replace a failed fractional CISO engagement with a scalable compliance platform
- Automate evidence collection across AWS, G Suite, and MDM infrastructure
- Establish policy templates and group approval workflows for legal and executive sign-off
- Stand up a mechanism to handle inbound security questionnaires without consuming team bandwidth
- Secure coverage for additional regulatory frameworks beyond ISO 27001
- Find an audit partner who could scope and execute the certification timeline
[ Why Drata won ]
Selected over Vanta because the InfoSec Lead had independently concluded that a compliance-first architecture was the right foundation for a certification deadline, not a vendor-management tool that had added compliance as a secondary capability.
Compliance-first architecture matched the actual problem: the buyer was solving a certification deadline, not a vendor management challenge. Drata's founding purpose aligned directly with that framing, and the InfoSec Lead had validated this independently before the first call. The competitive evaluation was resolved in a single meeting.
AICPA-authored policy templates removed a critical blocker: for a team with no existing compliance documentation, pre-built, audit-ready policies meant the program could start immediately rather than waiting for custom content to be developed.
Deferred start date decoupled signature from infrastructure readiness: the company could not implement immediately due to unresolved IT prerequisites. A 60-day deferred start allowed the contract to close in January while Apple Business Manager verification continued, removing the last commercial blocker without extending the timeline.
Audit ecosystem reinforced platform credibility: introducing a managed audit partner during the selling cycle gave the InfoSec Lead a complete path to certification, not just a software contract. This was the difference between a tool purchase and a program commitment.
[ How Drata solved it ]
Drata's GRC platform provided native ISO 27001 framework support and SOC 2 Type 1 coverage out of the box, with no custom development required against the company's existing AWS, G Suite, and Kandji stack. AICPA-authored policy templates and group approval workflows gave the InfoSec Lead a structured path to get legal and executive sign-off without building compliance documentation from scratch.
Automated evidence collection replaced the manual spreadsheet process entirely, enabling continuous monitoring against framework controls rather than point-in-time snapshots. Custom framework support extended coverage to additional regulatory requirements, and a managed audit partner was introduced to scope the certification timeline and reinforce the path to June 1. Trust Center gave the team a centralized mechanism to respond to inbound security questionnaires without pulling staff into repetitive manual responses.
[ Before and after Drata ]
Before Drata, the compliance program existed only as an unfulfilled engagement with a fractional CISO who had produced no infrastructure, no tooling, and no audit relationship after months of work. After, the company entered 2026 with a signed 24-month contract, a structured ISO 27001 audit timeline, and an audit partner already scoped, all before a single control had been formally tested.
[ Business outcome ]
The company signed a 24-month contract with a deferred start date, giving their IT team runway to complete infrastructure prerequisites while the compliance program was already contractually underway. The ISO 27001 audit path was defined and scheduled within the selling cycle itself, converting certification from an aspiration into a dated deliverable.
The audit partner relationship, established before contract close, meant the company entered implementation with both the platform and the certification ecosystem already aligned. Customer conversations that had stalled on the absence of compliance documentation now had a credible answer and a timeline. The expansion path to SOC 2 Type 2 and full regulatory framework coverage was built into the contract structure from day one.