A 22-person cloud infrastructure provider had been fielding security questionnaires by hand and watching enterprise deals stall because it lacked SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certifications. Healthcare and government clients were raising the bar, and a prior attempt with another vendor had gone nowhere. With a hard end-of-October deadline and a five-vendor bake-off already in motion, the company needed a path to two certifications that was fast, affordable, and light on internal effort. Drata delivered it.
[ The Problem ]
Customers Were Asking for Certifications the Team Couldn't Produce
The company's co-located data centers were already compliant in practice, but without formal SOC 2 and ISO 27001 attestations, healthcare and government clients had started raising concerns. Every new client relationship triggered a manual security questionnaire, pulling internal resources into repetitive, low-value work instead of audit preparation.
A previous compliance automation effort had been deprioritized and never reached the finish line. The business consequence was direct: without certifications, enterprise expansion conversations were at risk of stalling permanently.
[ What they needed ]
The team needed to accomplish all of this with an estimated 15 to 25 hours of internal effort:
- Achieve SOC 2 and ISO 27001 readiness simultaneously
- Automate evidence collection across a mixed cloud and on-premises environment
- Implement automated policy management and security training
- Deflect repetitive security questionnaires without manual responses
- Select and coordinate an independent auditor
- Complete onboarding and begin audit readiness within weeks, not months
- Keep total first-year costs within a constrained budget
[ Why Drata won ]
Selected over Vanta, the incumbent the company had previously attempted to use, because Drata matched the budget constraint through a structured term commitment and consistently answered every technical and commercial question faster than any other vendor in the evaluation.
Responsiveness as a competitive differentiator: after the initial discovery call, the buyer declined further meetings and conducted the entire evaluation over email. Drata stayed ahead of every question, covering audit costs, onboarding scope, Trust Center inclusion, and implementation timing in detail. The other vendors, including Vanta, could not match that pace in an email-only process.
Commercial structure that closed the gap: the list price was well above the buyer's stated target. Rather than losing the deal on price, Drata tied a meaningful discount to a 36-month commitment, giving the buyer the affordability it needed while securing duration. Vanta's win-back attempt on price alone was not enough to overcome the structured offer.
Independent auditor model: the buyer had concerns about Year 2 and Year 3 audit costs. Drata's model, which separates platform from audit and allows the customer to choose their own auditor, gave the buyer visibility and control over recurring costs that a bundled audit model could not provide.
Defined onboarding path: the 30-day structured implementation engagement gave the buyer a concrete answer to the question of how quickly audit readiness could begin, which mattered for a team that had already watched one compliance effort lose momentum and stall.
[ How Drata solved it ]
Drata's GRC platform provided the dual-framework coverage the team required, automating evidence collection, policy management, and security training across the company's existing stack including Azure Active Directory, Bamboo HR, GitLab, and Zendesk. AI-powered questionnaire automation (AIQA) addressed the manual questionnaire burden directly, giving the team a way to respond to inbound security requests without pulling staff into repetitive work. The Trust Center gave customers a self-serve destination for security documentation, reducing the volume of inbound requests before they reached the team.
A 30-day structured onboarding engagement provided a defined implementation path, translating the company's estimate of 15 to 25 hours of internal effort into a concrete, scheduled deliverable rather than an open-ended project. An independent-auditor model gave the team flexibility to select their own audit partner, keeping recurring audit costs visible and manageable across all three years of the commitment.
[ Before and after Drata ]
Before Drata, the company had no active path to SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification, a prior vendor effort had stalled, and every new client relationship required manual questionnaire responses from internal staff.
After, a structured three-year audit program is underway, questionnaire responses are automated, and the certifications healthcare and government clients have been requesting are now on a defined delivery schedule.
[ Business outcome ]
The company entered a three-year compliance program with a defined audit timeline, structured onboarding, and automated evidence collection in place from day one. Manual security questionnaire responses, previously handled entirely by hand for every new client, are now handled through automation and a self-serve Trust Center.
Healthcare and government clients who had raised certification requirements now have a clear timeline for attestation. The internal team, which had estimated 15 to 25 hours of effort to reach audit readiness, has a structured path to that milestone without absorbing the full weight of manual compliance work. The prior compliance effort that had stalled is now back on track with a committed delivery schedule.