ISO 27001 audit: Streamlining compliance for enterprise success

Compliance with ISO 27001 standards can be an uphill battle for large enterprises. Endless audit cycles, manual processes, and unpredictable costs make the experience grueling, especially for compliance teams tasked with ensuring information security. If you’re responsible for audits, chances are you’ve felt stuck in an “audit pain” cycle that seems impossible to escape. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In this blog post, we’ll tease apart the ISO 27001 audit process, address common pain points, and show you how Thoropass simplifies compliance for enterprise success.

Key takeaways

• ISO 27001 audits are essential for achieving and maintaining certification but are often fraught with inefficiencies
• Understanding the stages of the audit process and common challenges can help enterprises prepare more effectively
• Thoropass offers a streamlined, purpose-built platform to simplify audits, reduce costs, and save time

Stages of an ISO 27001 audit: Why audits feel like an endless loop

For a compliance leader at a growing enterprise, the ISO 27001 audit cycle can feel like a never-ending treadmill. Just as you complete one phase, another begins–draining resources, monopolizing team bandwidth, and pulling focus from strategic initiatives that could drive your business forward.

Let’s break down why this cycle feels so relentless: As your information security management system evolves with your growing business, each phase of the audit process requires extensive preparation, coordination across departments, and meticulous documentation. For large organizations, this means hundreds of hours spent gathering evidence, managing stakeholder communications, and responding to findings – only to start the process again.

What makes this particularly challenging for large enterprises is the compounding effect: While smaller companies might manage a linear audit process, enterprises must often juggle multiple frameworks, geographical requirements, and overlapping timelines simultaneously. This means your team could be preparing for a surveillance audit in one region while conducting a risk assessment in another–all while trying to maintain daily security operations and drive business growth.

1. Internal audit and audit report

Before external validation begins, you’ll need an independent internal assessment. While any team not involved in implementation can perform this audit, many enterprises find this initial stage challenging due to resource constraints and coordination complexity. Thoropass compliance architects can guide your team through internal audit preparation and documentation, reducing the burden while preserving auditor independence.

2. Stage 1 of the initial certification audit

The first formal stage examines your ISMS design. While traditionally conducted in person, many enterprises now opt for remote audits to accommodate global teams and complex organizational structures. Your auditor will evaluate the following:

• Policies and procedures documented in your ISMS
• Critical and non-critical findings that could impact Stage 2
• Your Statement of Applicability and overall security design

Note: Auditors do not necessarily examine Annex A controls. Using your Statement of Applicability, they determine whether the correct level of information security has been designed with the ISMS.

3. Stage 2 of the initial certification audit

This critical phase examines your ISMS in action—a particularly challenging stage for enterprises with multiple departments and locations. Your team must demonstrate:

• Real-world implementation of policies and procedures
• Evidence of controls across all relevant departments
• Practical application of your security framework
• How your ISMS handles complex scenarios, such as employee disciplinary actions

Enterprise impact: Plan for your control owners and key stakeholders to dedicate a full week to audit meetings—a significant investment of senior time and resources.

4.  ISO 27001 certification

Finally, you achieve certification: After the Stage 2 audit, your auditor will hold a closing meeting and share preliminary findings. While they can share an initial impression, the final certification decision rests with the certification body. Management should respond in the form of a corrective action plan, which includes: 

• The root cause of the issue
• The actions to remediate, and 
• A timeline for completion. 

Once those action plans have been drafted, the auditor will include them in the audit report, typically completed within 1-2 days of the closing meeting. At this point, auditors should be able to indicate if they believe you will be ISO 27001 certified, but the final decision lies with the certification body. 

5.  Periodic surveillance audits

As you know, ISO 27001 certification is not a one-and-done event. 

While ISO 27001 does not require an annual certification, you must still perform a surveillance audit in the off-years. Two years after your certification, an auditor from a certification body will perform a surveillance audit to ensure that the organization still operates the ISMS and controls as designed.

Surveillance audits include all clauses in the ISO 27001 framework, but only 50% of Annex A requirements are examined each year. (The auditor decides how this is divided.)  Additionally, the auditor will revisit any nonconformities found during the initial certification audit and determine whether the organization remediated the issues properly.

At the end of these audits, the auditor will again share any findings with management, similar to the first year, and produce an audit report to the certification body indicating whether the organization still meets the standard’s requirements to maintain certification.

6. Every three years: ISO 27001 recertification audits

You’ll need to repeat the whole certification process in the third year after certification (and every three years thereafter). During this time, your business has likely grown and changed, which means your ISMS and SoA should have changed with it, as reflected in your annual surveillance audits.

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Common pain points of ISO 27001 audits for enterprise companies

For enterprise organizations, ISO 27001 audits present unique challenges that grow exponentially with company size. What might be manageable pain points for smaller companies become major operational hurdles when scaled across thousands of employees, multiple departments, and various geographical locations.

Manual evidence collection

The sheer volume of documentation required for an enterprise ISO 27001 audit can be overwhelming. Your team spends countless hours hunting down evidence from various departments, following up on missing documents, and ensuring everything is properly formatted and organized. This manual approach not only wastes valuable time but also increases the risk of overlooking critical evidence or submitting outdated documentation, potentially leading to audit findings that could have been avoided.

Siloed teams

In large enterprises, the lack of transparency between departments creates significant barriers to efficient audit process management. When your security, IT, HR, and compliance teams operate in isolation, it becomes nearly impossible to maintain consistent security controls and documentation standards. This disconnection often results in duplicate efforts, inconsistent responses to auditor requests, and a fragmented view of your organization’s security posture.

Resource allocation

Managing an information security management system at an enterprise scale requires a careful balance of resources. Your compliance team is constantly stretched thin, trying to maintain daily security operations while preparing for upcoming audits. This challenge is amplified when dealing with multiple frameworks and certifications, as each requires dedicated attention and expertise. The result? Critical security initiatives often take a backseat to audit preparation, creating potential vulnerabilities in your security program.

Unpredictable costs and timelines

Enterprise certification audits rarely go according to plan. What starts as a straightforward timeline often extends due to unexpected findings, delayed responses from various departments, or the need for additional evidence collection. These delays cascade into increased costs—not just in direct audit expenses but also in the hidden costs of devoted internal resources and delayed strategic initiatives.

Endless audit cycles

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect for enterprise compliance leaders is the perpetual nature of the audit cycle. As soon as you complete your certification audit, you’re already preparing for surveillance audits. Layer in other compliance frameworks, and your team finds themselves trapped in an endless loop of preparation, evidence collection, and response to findings. This constant cycle prevents your team from focusing on strategic security improvements and innovation that could actually strengthen your security posture.

Five ways Thoropass simplifies ISO 27001 audits

Traditional approaches to ISO 27001 audits weren’t designed for the complexity and scale of modern enterprises. Thoropass offers a platform and expert support that streamlines compliance prep, while working in alignment with independent certifying processes.

1. Streamlined process

Eliminate the endless back-and-forth with auditors and time wasted hunting down evidence across departments: Thoropass’s automated workflows transform how enterprises manage their audit process. Our platform provides real-time monitoring and alerts, ensuring you catch potential issues before they become audit findings. When your external auditor requests evidence, everything is readily accessible in one centralized location.

The platform’s collaborative environment breaks down silos between departments, enabling seamless communication between your team and auditors. By centralizing all audit-related activities, documentation, and communications, Thoropass eliminates the confusion and delays that typically plague enterprise ISO 27001 certification efforts. Teams can work simultaneously on different aspects of compliance while maintaining visibility across all activities.

2. Multi-framework capability

In today’s complex regulatory environment, enterprises rarely need to comply with just one framework. Thoropass’s multi-framework approach transforms how you handle evidence collection and management. Upload evidence once, and our platform automatically maps it to relevant controls across multiple frameworks, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, and others. This innovative approach means you can simultaneously satisfy requirements for multiple certifications, dramatically reducing your team’s resource burden.

Through intelligent control mapping and evidence reusability, you can achieve multiple certifications with a single audit effort. This not only saves time and resources, but also ensures consistency across your compliance programs. The platform’s smart tagging and categorization features make it easy to track which evidence satisfies which requirements across frameworks.

3. Purpose-built platform

Thoropass isn’t a generic compliance tool retrofitted for ISO 27001—it’s built specifically to handle the complexities of enterprise ISMS requirements. Our customizable templates guide you through each requirement, while our integration capabilities pull necessary data directly from your existing tools. This purpose-built approach means you’re not wasting time adapting generic solutions to fit your needs.

The platform features intelligent workflows that adapt to your organization’s specific requirements and risk profile. Advanced AI capabilities, including GenAI Due Diligence Questionnaires, help automate routine tasks while ensuring accuracy. Real-time dashboards provide instant visibility into your compliance status, making it easy to track progress and identify potential issues before they impact your audit.

4. Experienced experts at your side

Technology alone isn’t enough. That’s why Thoropass pairs our advanced platform with seasoned compliance experts who understand enterprise-scale challenges. Our team supports you throughout your entire journey, from initial gap analysis through the certification process and beyond. These experts help optimize your compliance program, provide strategic guidance, and ensure you make the most of the platform’s capabilities.

Having access to experienced professionals means you’re never alone in navigating complex audit requirements. Our experts help interpret findings, develop remediation strategies, and provide best practices based on extensive experience with enterprise implementations. This combination of technology and expertise ensures you’re not just checking boxes but building a robust and sustainable compliance program.

5. Cost and time savings

By streamlining processes, eliminating redundant work, and automating manual tasks, Thoropass significantly reduces the time and cost associated with ISO 27001 compliance. Our customers typically see substantial reductions in audit preparation time and resource requirements. The platform’s efficiency means your team can focus on strategic security initiatives rather than getting bogged down in audit administration.

Real-time monitoring and automated alerts help prevent issues before they become costly problems. By surfacing potential issues in advance, the platform helps reduce last-minute surprises and supports more efficient remediation efforts before your audit begins. The platform’s structured approach to evidence collection and management means you’re always audit-ready, eliminating the mad rush and associated costs of last-minute audit preparation.

Conclusion: Take the pain out of ISO 27001 audits

!SO 27001 audits don’t have to be a perpetual drain on your resources. While your competitors continue struggling with manual processes and endless audit cycles, forward-thinking organizations are breaking free from traditional approaches. Thoropass customers have reported reducing audit preparation time by up to 50%, based on internal case studies and customer feedback. 

Consider this: What could your team accomplish if they weren’t constantly caught in the audit preparation cycle? How much more strategic value could you deliver if your compliance processes ran smoothly in the background, powered by automation and guided by experts? The endless cycle of audit pain isn’t inevitable – it’s just a sign that your compliance processes haven’t kept pace with your enterprise’s growth.

Ready to break free from the endless audit cycle? Request a demo of Thoropass today and discover how enterprise compliance can be simplified, streamlined, and scaled.

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