There is no doubt that ISO 27001 certification requires a significant financial and people investment. This is a roadblock to many small companies getting ISO 27001 certified.
There are advantages to being ISO 27001 certified. Here are some examples:
- Win deals with clients requiring ISO 27001 compliance
- Gain competitive advantage internationally
- Gain the trust of larger organisations
- Secure your supply chain
- Meet your legal and regulatory obligations
- Standardise processes and increase your productivity
- Build a culture of trust, information security and compliance.
- It demonstrates your commitment to information security
- It helps you win more contracts and protect your reputation
- It helps you avoid expensive fines for security breaches
- It shows regulatory bodies that your business is in compliance with the standard
- It decreases the need for constant audits
What is ISO 27001?
ISO 27001 is the leading international standard for information security. In simple terms, it’s a set of guidelines and best practices required to create and maintain an effective information security management system.
What does ISO 27001 do?
ISO 27001 essentially protects information from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction. It goes beyond just digital or electronic information and includes physical records, intellectual property, financial information, plus any form of sensitive or valuable information – ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
What is ISO 27001 Certification?
ISO 27001 certification is an independent verification that confirms that your organisation’s management system meets the standard.
Benefits of ISO 27001 compliance
1. Avoid fines and penalties of a data breach
ISO 27001 will help you avoid costly fines: breaches are expensive!
ISO 27001 will help you avoid costly fines: breaches are expensive! IBM Research puts the average data breach cost in 2024 at $4.88 million. Of those breached organisations, 83% of them had been attacked before. Astonishing, isn’t it? With these rising costs in mind, the ISO 27001 framework is vital step towards keeping yours and your customers’ sensitive information secure.
2. ISO 27001 accreditation will help you win new business and protect your reputation
You want to be known for being the best in your industry, right? ISO 27001 builds customer trust and confidence by independently proving that your products and service are secure.
3. Certify to ISO 27001 to demonstrate your commitment to information security
Certification shows your existing and potential clients, partners and stakeholders that your company:
- Complies with the standard
- Is serious about improving their information security posture
- Follows international best practices to keep their company information safe
- Employs a management system that meets global best practices
- Can them time and effort authenticating the supplier’s security procedure
- Can save them on costs due to improved security measures and risk management
- Is committed to creating a culture of continuous improvement and ongoing risk assessment
In a nutshell, organisations require assurance that you’re a safe bet and give a damn about their information security.4
4. ISO 27001 is great for your clients
Getting your ISO 27001 certificate demonstrates that you have procedures and security measures in place to protect your clients’ information assets in the case of a security incident. This will give you a competitive advantage as potential customers are more likely to choose a provider who is certified over one that isn’t. It’s as simple as that.
In a world where data breaches and cyber security threats are rife, most organisations now expect their suppliers to be certified as standard.
5. ISO 27001 is great for your company
Every business owner wants to succeed, don’t they? But without an ISO 27001 framework in place, you are potentially missing out on new business.
Sound familiar?
- That huge tender you wish you could win (but you need to be ISO 27001 certified to bid)
- That organisation you’re desperate to gain as a customer (but they won’t touch a business who hasn’t been through the accreditation process)
Gone are the days where only the big organisations can access the accreditation process. Thanks to companies like High Table, getting accredited is faster and more affordable than ever. So, what’s stopping you?
6. ISO 27001 shows that you’re on top of your regulatory compliance
ISO 27001 aligns with legal, regulatory, and contractual requirements related to information security. By implementing the standard, you can ensure that your organisation satisfies GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) and data protection requirements, industry-specific requirements, and contractual obligations.
7. ISO 27001 will reduce the need for frequent audits
Being certified reduces the requirement for audits because it provides independent authentication, simplifies due diligence, aligns with regulatory compliance, and demonstrates proactive risk management.
Accreditation is credible evidence of a well-established information security management system, which reduces the demand for additional audits or assessments.
Follow these steps to ISO 27001 certification success:
- Identify the information assets that need protection and the processes that need to be included in the ISMS (Information Security Management System)
- Identify the risks to the information assets and evaluate their impact. This helps to prioritise which risks to address first and what controls to implement.
- Once the controls have been identified, the organisation needs to implement them.
- Conduct internal audits to make sure that the ISMS is operating properly and meets the ISO 27001 standard.
- Conduct a management review of the ISMS to make sure it’s meeting the organisation’s goals and objectives.
- Book an external accreditation body to perform an audit to determine whether the ISMS meets the ISO 27001 standard. If it does, certificate granted. Mission accomplished.
The business case for ISO 27001 compliance
In a survey of our clients 92% of companies felt that the cost of achieving ISO 27001 certification was fully justified by it’s benefits and returned an ROI of 20% or more.
You may consider that it is hard to put a price tag on security and compliance but there are things to consider in terms of the alternatives.
- What would be the cost to you of a data breach?
- What would be the cost to you of an outage of service?
- What is the average sale value of clients you have lost by not being ISO 27001 certified?
If you are considering ISO 27001 certification our ISO 27001 toolkit and ISO 27001 Certainty Method have reduced costs to organisations by up to 300% (three hundred percent).
