How GlobalCorp Achieved ISO 27001 Certification Across 50+ Countries
A global enterprise standardized compliance across all regions, achieved ISO 27001 certification in 6 months, and saved $400K in annual compliance costs.
Key Results
Company Overview
The Challenge
GlobalCorp was facing a compliance nightmare. As a rapidly growing enterprise software company with offices in 50+ countries, they had accumulated a patchwork of regional compliance certifications—SOC 2 in North America, various local standards in Europe and Asia, but no unified global framework. Enterprise customers, particularly in regulated industries, were increasingly demanding ISO 27001 certification as a prerequisite for doing business.
The company's decentralized compliance approach was unsustainable. Each region managed compliance independently using different consultants, tools, and processes. The CISO estimated they were spending $600K annually across regional compliance programs, yet they still couldn't provide a unified global certification. Worse, the manual evidence collection process required 20+ hours per week from each regional security lead—time that should have been spent on actual security improvements.
The board mandated ISO 27001 certification within 12 months to support a major expansion into the European market. Traditional Big Four consultants quoted $800K-$1.2M and 18-24 month timelines. The CISO knew this approach would be both too expensive and too slow. They needed a scalable, automated solution that could unify compliance across all global operations while reducing the burden on regional security teams.
"We were spending $600K a year on fragmented regional compliance programs and still couldn't provide a unified global certification. Our regional teams were drowning in manual evidence collection. We needed ISO 27001, but traditional consultants wanted another million dollars and two years. It was unsustainable."
The Solution
GlobalCorp partnered with LowerPlane to implement a unified ISO 27001 compliance program across all global operations in just 6 months—at a fraction of traditional consulting costs.
Week 1: Global Assessment & Standardization
- Conducted comprehensive readiness assessment across all 50+ regions
- Mapped existing SOC 2 and regional certifications to ISO 27001 controls
- Identified 60% of ISO 27001 requirements already satisfied by existing controls
- Created unified global compliance roadmap with regional coordination plan
Week 2-12: Global Implementation & Automation
- Deployed LowerPlane platform to all regional security teams—single source of truth
- Automated evidence collection from 150+ global systems (AWS, Azure, GCP, Okta, GitHub)
- Standardized 93 ISO 27001 policies across all regions (with localized appendices)
- Established centralized risk register with regional ownership and tracking
- Conducted global employee security awareness training (8,500+ employees)
Week 13-24: Audit Preparation & Certification
- Conducted internal audit across all global operations—identified 12 minor gaps
- Remediated all findings with regional team coordination (2 weeks)
- Coordinated with global certification body for Stage 1 and Stage 2 audits
- Provided auditor with comprehensive evidence package—covering all 93 controls
- Achieved ISO 27001 certification—covering all global operations in scope
The Results
"LowerPlane transformed our global compliance program. Before, we had 50+ regions doing compliance in silos— different consultants, different tools, different processes. It was chaos, and it was costing us $600K a year without giving us the global certification we needed. LowerPlane gave us a single platform that automated evidence collection from all our systems worldwide. Our regional security leads went from spending 20 hours a week on compliance to 3 hours. We achieved ISO 27001 in 6 months at a total cost under $200K—saving us $400K annually going forward. The board was thrilled because we accelerated our European expansion by half a year, unlocking $50M in contracts that were waiting on ISO certification. This was truly transformational."
Key Takeaways
Global compliance requires unified platforms, not regional silos
GlobalCorp's fragmented approach was expensive and inefficient. A single platform with automated evidence collection provided consistency, visibility, and massive cost savings across all regions simultaneously.
Leverage existing certifications to accelerate ISO 27001
GlobalCorp already had SOC 2 and regional certifications. By mapping these to ISO 27001 controls, they discovered 60% of requirements were already satisfied—dramatically reducing implementation time.
Automation scales compliance without scaling headcount
Managing compliance across 50+ countries manually is impossible. Automated evidence collection reduced regional team burden by 85%, freeing security leaders to focus on actual security improvements instead of manual documentation.
ISO 27001 opens doors to global enterprise markets
For enterprises doing business internationally, ISO 27001 is the gold standard. GlobalCorp's certification immediately unlocked $50M in European contracts and accelerated their international expansion strategy by 6 months—demonstrating clear ROI.
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