Compliance management isn’t exactly known for its simplicity. For most assessment firms, compliance engagements are full of wasted time, painful processes, and inflated organizational costs. That was true for Crimson Security, too…for a while. But Crimson found a way to eliminate the waste, cut costs, and enjoy a streamlined compliance management process.
- Customer’s Business: Security assessment firm
- Opportunity: Crimson Security was looking for a SaaS solution that would reduce wasted efforts and redundancies, helping to eliminate costs, boost workflows, and increase profitability.
- Solution: TCT Portal
- Results: Hundreds of man-hours recovered, streamlined workflows, easier reporting
About Crimson Security
Crimson Security Inc. is an information security compliance and assessment firm established in 2002 by a group of security professionals. Crimson conducts about 40 assessments per year and has established themselves as a flexible and customizable solution for its clients. They see the assessment as a consultative and collaborative exercise with clients, which makes it imperative to streamline compliance management and eliminate wasted effort.
Related: Why Compliance Auditors Say TCT Portal Is a Lifesaver
The Challenge
Crimson was enduring a clunky compliance management process that took too much time and created frustration. “We would have the reporting or the standard in spreadsheet form and we would do a lot of information gathering — whether it was screenshots or data entry or something else. It was basically spreadsheet-driven,” said Crimson COO Mike Conklin.
The reporting process involved manually entering everything from one spreadsheet and converting it into translatable form, then moving it into the standard audit or assessment. “It was a painful process. Painful,” Mike said. “It took a lot of time.”
Crimson needed a way to improve their efficiency and simplify their compliance management process. They were tired of wasting time, and they wanted a solution that streamlined the entire process.
That’s why they chose TCT Portal.
The Solution
Crimson’s CEO, Dave Hogan, had tried several compliance management tools, but he couldn’t find anything that met expectations. The compliance software he had found did the jobs they were intended for, but they didn’t really make the process itself any better. They weren’t game changers.
Then Crimson met Total Compliance Tracking. TCT understood Crimson’s needs and offered a solution that addressed the entire compliance management process. “One of the things that was attractive about TCT Portal was the flexibility,” Mike said. “There’s a lot of opportunity for customization to enhance the product.”
TCT Portal is an all-in-one compliance management tool for organizing and managing all the moving parts of your compliance assessments. The web-based application combines automation with deep compliance expertise to give you a powerful tool that takes the chaos out of your client engagements.
The Results
Since implementing TCT Portal, Crimson Security is eliminating costs and wasted time with every compliance assessment. They’ve streamlined their client engagements, and ended the biggest pains of compliance. Here are the biggest benefits their assessors are enjoying.
Speedy reporting
Crimson is generating reports faster than ever before. Reporting time has shrunk from multiple days to a few short hours. The ability to save days’ worth of effort on that task alone has been invaluable.
“Generally in the fourth quarter, I’m on the road from the middle of September to the week before Christmas,” Mike said. “You get on a plane, go somewhere, do work, come back — you lose a week, generally. Being able to work faster with TCT Portal, it’s a great value-add.”
Eliminated redundancies
Besides faster reporting, TCT Portal eliminates time-wasting redundancies. While most compliance processes seem to have redundancy built in, TCT’s software uses automation to handle it for you.
Because TCT Portal maintains the data entry portion as a historical record, you only need to enter things that have changed year to year. It dramatically reduces the work you and your client have to do.
Stronger client collaboration
Crimson has also seen an improvement in their collaboration with clients. Because everything is tracked within TCT Portal, you know exactly what each person has done, what they’ve submitted, and when. There’s no he said/she said.
“It makes everybody accountable to the process,” Mike said. “ You can’t say, ‘Oh, I sent that to you.’ Everyone can see the dashboard. Instead, you hear, “Oh, I thought I sent it, but I guess I didn’t.’ ” Rather than playing the blame game, you spend your time focused as a team on getting tasks checked off the to-do list.
World-class customer service
When you buy a software solution, you don’t just purchase the product — you purchase the support as well. For Crimson, the customer service that TCT provides isn’t just impressive, it’s invaluable. “TCT’s customer service is phenomenal. And I don’t say that lightly,” Mike said. “There’s never a question or a request that goes unanswered.”
“That’s the one thing I hate — dealing with a company that’s unresponsive. It sucks. And TCT’s customer service is phenomenal.”
Software providers who walk the talk
According to Mike, “At least 90 percent of the stuff we’ve asked for, they produce it. They put it in the next release.” TCT asks for input from customers about new features they need. With such an active customer community, the vast majority of every release is functionality that customers requested.
Many compliance management solutions are produced by software builders attempting to solve a problem. TCT’s founders lived in the compliance management space, and chose to build a solution.
Streamline Your Compliance Assessments
Need more efficient compliance engagements? Work with a company that truly values your opinion and listens. TCT’s compliance management software helps simplify and automate the compliance assessment process, so you can stop wasting time and start cutting operational costs.
