A growth-stage marine services firm was running ISO 27001 compliance across multiple entities out of spreadsheets, with an audit deadline approaching and no centralized system for controls, evidence, or vendor workflows. The evaluation was long and technically demanding. On-premises infrastructure, multi-entity governance requirements, and a budget that had not yet been formally approved all had to be resolved before a decision could move forward. Drata won by staying in the process, proving out the hybrid environment use case, and packaging a first-year scope the IT team could take through internal approval.
[ The Problem ]
An ISO Re-Certification Deadline With No Scalable Process Behind It
The compliance operation was held together by manual effort. Controls, evidence, risk registers, and vendor workflows were tracked across spreadsheets and fragmented across entities, with no centralized visibility into audit readiness.
As the ISO 27001 re-certification deadline approached, the cost of that fragmentation became concrete: duplicated work across entities, mounting manual effort during each audit cycle, and no clear path to scaling compliance as the business grew. The problem was not theoretical. It was already consuming team capacity and would only get worse as audit scope expanded.
[ What they needed ]
Before selecting a platform, the team needed to:
- Replace spreadsheet-based control and evidence tracking with automated collection
- Support ISO 27001 re-certification across multiple entities without duplicating effort
- Connect compliance monitoring to a hybrid environment mixing on-premises infrastructure with Azure
- Give auditors direct platform access without adding per-seat cost pressure
- Centralize risk and vendor management under a single subscription
- Validate a path to GDPR and future framework coverage without committing to full scope in year one
- Build a first-year package small enough to pass internal approval while leaving room to expand
[ Why Drata won ]
Selected over Sprinto, Drata offered a stronger overall operating model combining usability, included module breadth, and a pricing structure that did not penalize adoption.
Usability under real evaluation conditions: the champion consistently described Drata as simpler and easier to use than the alternatives. That preference held through an extended POC that exposed genuine friction points, which made it more credible than early-stage impressions.
Risk and vendor modules included in base scope: competitors required separate purchases or higher tiers for capabilities Drata bundled into the subscription. For a buyer trying to define a minimal viable first-year package, that breadth reduced the number of line items requiring approval.
Framework-based pricing without user limits: the team needed auditor access and broader internal participation without triggering seat-based cost increases. That model aligned directly with how the compliance program was expected to operate.
Roadmap credibility on workspace delivery: a concrete timeline for multi-entity workspace functionality, supported by a formal roadmap artifact, gave the champion the justification needed to move from verbal internal support to a signed approval. Without that, a remaining fit gap would have kept the evaluation open.
[ How Drata solved it ]
Drata GRC addressed the core ISO 27001 problem directly: automated evidence collection, continuous control monitoring, and auditor access built into the platform removed the manual overhead that had been accumulating across entities. For the hybrid infrastructure challenge, custom connections allowed the team to send data payloads from on-premises systems into Drata, with Drata building the test logic and evidence layer on top, giving the team a workable path without requiring a full cloud migration.
TPRM was included in the base subscription alongside the risk module, which meant vendor management and risk workflows did not require a separate purchase or a later negotiation. Framework-based pricing without user limits also resolved a recurring concern: broader internal access and auditor participation would not trigger seat-based cost increases as the program matured.
For multi-entity governance, workspace separation provided the structural answer the team needed, with a concrete delivery timeline used to support the internal approval case. The Trust Center addressed security review requests without requiring manual responses for each inbound inquiry.
[ Before and after Drata ]
Before Drata, ISO 27001 compliance across multiple entities ran entirely on manual processes, with no centralized evidence collection, no continuous monitoring, and audit preparation consuming direct team effort each cycle.
After, automated evidence collection and control monitoring are in place, the hybrid infrastructure is connected through a defined architecture, and risk and vendor workflows are centralized under a single platform the team can expand without a new procurement cycle.
[ Business outcome ]
The firm entered its ISO 27001 re-certification cycle with a centralized compliance platform replacing the spreadsheet-driven process that had been running across entities. Automated evidence collection and continuous monitoring removed the manual audit preparation burden that had been scaling with each cycle.
The hybrid infrastructure use case was resolved through a defined custom connection architecture, giving the IT team a repeatable model for connecting on-premises systems to compliance monitoring. With risk, vendor management, and GDPR coverage included in the initial scope, the platform is positioned to absorb the compliance expansion the team had been planning across finance controls, additional frameworks, and future governance requirements, without requiring a separate procurement cycle for each.