When a sports technology company's compliance platform announced it was shutting down, the timing could not have been worse. The team was mid-SOC 2 audit, had recently lost key security personnel, and was operating with a fraction of its normal capacity. With a hard renewal deadline approaching and a new security leader still ramping, the company needed a replacement that would reduce manual work, not add to it. They found one, but only after the commercial terms matched the reality of what a lean team could justify.
[ The Problem ]
Your compliance platform is sunsetting. Your audit is live. Your team just shrank.
The forcing event was external: the incumbent compliance platform was being discontinued, and the contract renewal window was closing fast. But the internal conditions made it harder. Manual evidence collection still ran on spreadsheets and files. Security questionnaire responses were disorganized and slow. Policy changes needed to stay audit-defensible, and access reviews for contractors fell outside the team's practical workflow.
The business consequence of inertia was not just continued inefficiency. Drifting past the renewal window risked locking the team into a rushed migration during an already constrained audit period, or defaulting back to a sunsetting tool with no long-term future.
[ What they needed ]
The team needed a replacement that could absorb disruption, not depend on ideal conditions.
- Replace a sunsetting compliance platform before the renewal deadline
- Reduce manual evidence collection during an active SOC 2 audit
- Automate security questionnaire responses to free up team capacity
- Preserve policy version history and control mappings through migration
- Integrate cleanly into a Microsoft-heavy stack without a process redesign
- Handle access reviews for contractors sitting outside standard employee workflows
- Justify the switch commercially without a significant cost increase over the incumbent
[ Why Drata won ]
Selected over Vanta, Drata matched the team's operational priorities and removed price as the dominant objection at the moment it mattered most.
Evidence automation depth: The incoming security leader's evaluation came down to one question: would this reduce manual work during an active audit? Drata's API-driven evidence collection, raw JSON audit artifacts, and Freshservice-integrated remediation workflows answered that question directly in the demo.
Microsoft stack fit without redesign: The buyer was not looking to rebuild compliance processes. Drata's native integrations with Azure AD, Intune, and Azure DevOps meant the platform could slot into the existing environment rather than require a parallel infrastructure build during an already constrained period.
Commercial flexibility at the right moment: Early pricing created disqualification risk. Drata adapted with a packaging option that brought the total in line with incumbent pricing expectations, removing the cost objection before it could end the evaluation.
Questionnaire automation as a credible differentiator: The team's questionnaire process was described as disorganized and inefficient. Drata's AI-assisted questionnaire automation, combined with Trust Center, gave the buyer a concrete operational improvement that Tugboat had not offered and that Vanta had not made the centerpiece of its pitch.
[ How Drata solved it ]
Drata's automated evidence collection addressed the team's most immediate operational pain: API-based daily tests pull raw evidence, surface remediation steps, and feed directly into auditor-ready workflows, eliminating the screenshot-heavy manual preparation the team had been living with. Drata GRC supported policy import from the outgoing platform, preserving control mappings, approval history, and version tracking so the migration did not require rebuilding compliance infrastructure from scratch.
The Microsoft-first environment was a strong fit. Azure AD, Intune, Azure DevOps, and Freshservice all connected natively, and the platform used the identity provider as the source of truth for access reviews, including contractors who had been awkwardly managed in the prior setup. Drata's AI-powered questionnaire automation gave the security team a way to handle inbound diligence requests without pulling people away from audit work. Trust Center extended that further, letting the company share security posture proactively rather than responding to each request individually.
[ Before and after Drata ]
Before Drata, the team was managing SOC 2 evidence manually on spreadsheets while simultaneously absorbing the disruption of a sunsetting platform and reduced headcount. After, automated evidence collection and auditor-ready workflows replaced the manual process, and the incoming security leader had a system built to run with a lean team rather than depend on full staffing.
[ Business outcome ]
The company closed on a 24-month term, replacing a sunsetting platform without extending its audit timeline or increasing team workload during the transition. Automated evidence collection replaced the manual, file-based process that had been the team's biggest operational drag. The incoming security leader was able to evaluate the platform on its actual operational merits and found the back-end automation to be the clearest improvement over what the team had before.
Questionnaire handling shifted from a reactive, disorganized process to an automated one, reducing the diligence burden on a team that could not afford to absorb it manually. The commercial terms were structured to match the buyer's anchored expectations, removing price as a barrier and making the switch economically rational without requiring a difficult internal justification.