How Officebeacon Achieved ISO 27001 Certification in 40 Days

2 weeks Time to achieve ISO 27001 audit readiness

~1 month Time to complete the ISO 27001 audit and receive certification

2000+ employees Aligned to the compliance program

Before Sprinto

After Sprinto

A time-bound push to ramp up customer acquisition surfaced the need for ISO 27001 certification, while a pre-COVID Big 4 gap assessment had already revealed policy implementation shortcomings that made a formal security compliance program overdue.

Officebeacon used Sprinto’s policy templates and integrations to document and publish policies org-wide, map them to controls and checks with clear owners, and track remediation from a single interactive dashboard.

The path recommended by the Big 4 assessor would have taken close to a year just to get processes and policies in place, which was not compatible with the strict timeline Officebeacon needed to meet.

With Sprinto’s automation and support, Officebeacon reached ISO 27001 audit readiness in 2 weeks—work that would have taken more than 8 months using Excel and PowerBI.

The CISO wanted to overhaul compliance with genuine technical rigor, eliminating silos, enforcing policies, and monitoring controls continuously, none of which the existing manual approach could support.

With Sprinto’s automation and integrations, Officebeacon enforced policies at the entity level, configured granular checks tagged to workflows and owners, and maintained continuous monitoring across infrastructure, people, and devices.

“Following their recommendations would mean committing to almost a year of our time to just getting processes set up and policies implemented. We had a strict timeline to meet, and this approach was not feasible.”

– Anil Varma
CISO, Officebeacon

“We could have accomplished all of this using Excel and PowerBI, but it would have required many man-hours. And more than 8 months. With a purpose-built tool like Sprinto, we can meet timelines and goals much faster.”

– Anil Varma
CISO, Officebeacon

Introduction

Officebeacon was planning to ramp up customer acquisition efforts across markets. That time-bound, strategic push brought to the surface the need for ISO 27001 certification to prove both product security and operational maturity. A pre-COVID gap assessment by one of the Big 4 audit firms had already flagged policy implementation shortcomings, making a formal security compliance program overdue.

With a strict timeline in place and a CISO determined to apply genuine technical rigor to the program, Officebeacon needed an approach that could move fast without cutting corners.

The Problem

The Big 4 gap assessment had identified policy implementation shortcomings that required a formal security compliance program to address. But the path the assessor outlined was not compatible with where Officebeacon needed to be, or when. “Following their recommendations would mean committing to almost a year of our time to just getting processes set up and policies implemented.

We had a strict timeline to meet, and this approach was not feasible,” recalls Anil Varma, CISO at Officebeacon. Beyond the timeline, Anil was also intent on refreshing compliance processes altogether, applying technical rigor to eliminate silos, enforce policies, and monitor controls. When evaluating vendors, Officebeacon wanted a specialist platform that could consolidate information in a single place.

Sprinto stood out immediately: “No other tool gave us the confidence that Sprinto did. Just by looking at the dashboard, I could tell that the platform is comprehensive.”

The Solution

Officebeacon kicked off ISO 27001 implementation with policy documentation using Sprinto’s policy templates. “We spent almost 10 days on this,” notes Anil. “Once the policies accurately reflected Officebeacon’s ethos and commitments, we published them in Sprinto and made them available to the entire organization.”

With the employee email provider integrated with Sprinto, Officebeacon could trigger emails for security training and policy acknowledgment org-wide.

Turning policies into controls and mapping each control to suitable checks followed right after. Control owners were identified, and a monitoring and remediation exercise was immediately launched to fill compliance gaps. As part of the integrated risk assessment exercise, tasks ranging from device encryption and multifactor authentication to vulnerability management and vendor management practices were scoped out. “We realized that while many of these tasks were emphasized in our policies, they were not effectively implemented. Primarily because we lacked the tools to enforce them at the entity level as strictly as needed,” notes Anil.

With Sprinto, Officebeacon was able to address this head-on. As Anil stated, ” Sprinto’s dashboard is very interactive. With a single click, you can see where you stand and how many things are compliant and pending across different levels, such as infrastructure, people, devices, and more.”

Technical factors aside, Anil notes that one of the biggest hurdles was getting an organization of over 2000 employees to come together at once to meet compliance requirements. “It’s a mindset challenge, really,” he says. “Coaching your teams on the importance of compliance helps. Senior leadership’s championship is key,” he adds.

To enable prompt actions, Officebeacon leveraged Sprinto’s automation capabilities to the fullest. Armed with clear, time-bound compliance workflows and period triggers, Officebeacon was able to move steadily towards its goal of achieving ISO 27001 compliance. Anil remarks, “We began operating at a granular level. Using Sprinto we configured checks in a detailed manner. Tagged to a workflow and a person, monitoring compliance progress became easy.”

Impact

Officebeacon was ISO 27001 audit ready in 2 weeks. “I went through each and every control and it was all mapped to exercises we did on-site.”

Using the Sprinto auditor dashboard, it was easy for Officebeacon to share evidence with their auditor. Accuracy was key, and Sprinto assured Anil of the quality of the evidence, including snapshots. “Because issues were fixed well in advance of the audit process, it was easy for us to complete audits quickly,” says Anil.

Within 40 days of entering an audit, Officebeacon received its ISO 27001 Certification.

Anil notes that automation played a crucial role in helping Officebeacon achieve audit success. “We could have accomplished all of this using Excel and PowerBI, but it would have required many man-hours. And more than 8 months. With a purpose-built tool like Sprinto, we can meet timelines and goals much faster.”

Anil also emphasized the role Sprinto’s support team played in enabling him. “Software vendors can be rigid but Sprinto was flexible and worked with us. They have a solution mindset and the team problem-solved with us every step of the way,” he notes.

He also credited Sprinto’s support team: “Software vendors can be rigid, but Sprinto was flexible and worked with us. They have a solution mindset.” Since achieving certification, Officebeacon operates with greater confidence: “Now that everything is lined up in one software, we are more relaxed.”