5 Ways SMEs Can Overcome Security Compliance Challenges | Smartly
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    5 Ways SMEs Can Overcome Compliance Challenges

    Phuong Linh

    Phuong Linh

    July 18, 2025 • 3 min read

    Achieving and maintaining security compliance can feel daunting for startups and small‑to‑medium enterprises (SMEs). Long audit timelines, high costs, and limited expertise often stall growth. This guide breaks down the biggest pain points and offers five practical strategies any SME can apply today.

    What Makes Security Compliance So Difficult to Achieve?

    Despite its clear benefits, many startups and SMEs find compliance overwhelming for five key reasons:

    • Time‑Consuming Processes: Achieving compliance with frameworks like SOC 2 or ISO 27001 requires an extensive review of systems, policies, and procedures. The audit process involves documentation, evidence gathering, and risk assessments that can take up to 6-12 months to complete, depending on the company’s size and the complexity of its security controls. During this time, security compliance efforts can often distract teams from their main business activities, especially if they do not have a compliance specialist.
    • High Costs: Compliance audits and certifications are often expensive For example, SOC 2 audits can cost anywhere between $30,000-80,000, depending on the audit’s scope and the size of the organization. Similarly, ISO 27001 certification fees can range from $50,000-200,000, including consultancy fees, internal resource time, and third-party audit expenses. These high upfront costs are a significant barrier for startups with limited budgets.
    • Limited Resources & Expertise: Many startups and SMEs lack dedicated teams or personnel with expertise in security compliance, so they have to rely on their IT staff to manage these responsibilities. The internal team may not be fully familiar with the complex requirements of SOC 2 or ISO 27001, resulting in mistakes, inefficiencies and delayed tasks.
    • Fragmented Documentation & Evidence : Compliance requires collecting evidence from various systems and departments, such as HR, finance, IT, and operations. As a result, documentation is often scattered across different platforms like drives, cloud storage, or email threads. This makes it tedious to gather, update, and cross-check all the required information.
    • Regulatory Fragmentation: Staying compliant with global data protection and privacy laws can be incredibly challenging, because regulations such as GDPR , CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), and India’s DPDP (Data Protection) Act are continually evolving to keep up with evolving threats. This makes it difficult for companies to track which rules apply to them and how they need to be applied.
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    5 Ways SMEs Can Overcome Compliance Challenges

    1. Build Cybersecurity Awareness and Knowledge: Leverage free resources (blogs, webinars, training modules) and hold regular internal sessions to reinforce learning and accountability.
    2. Prioritize and Plan Spending: Focus budgets on high‑impact controls first: MFA, strong passwords, regular backups, and use built‑in security features in your existing tools.
    3. Centralize Documentation and Automate Workflows: Some compliance platforms, like Smartly can consolidate policies, risk assessments, and logs in one dashboard, speeding audits and reducing errors.
    4. Engage External Expertise Wisely: Use consultants selectively to map controls to your risk profile without overextending resources.
    5. Adopt a Continuous Improvement Mindset: Treat compliance as an ongoing cycle: Monitor, update controls, and train teams regularly to stay ahead of threats.

    However, not every company can wait for their employees to learn everything via online resources, pay for expensive consultants or navigate complex policies and documentation on their own. After all, companies still have their main business to take care of. If you want a quick and stress-free security compliance journey for your team, Smartly can help you with automation!

    How Smartly Simplifies Security Compliance in 4 Easy Steps

    1. Conduct Gap Analysis:

    Pinpoint missing controls with a quick questionnaire to know exactly what's missing to pass your next security audit or achieve certification.

    2. Build Your Roadmap to Audit-Readiness:

    Get pre‑built policy & task templates aligned with the ISO 27001 framework and mapped to control requirements. You can also assign tasks, set access levels, and collaborate with stakeholders across departments.

    3. Keep Track of Your Progress:

    Collect and manage evidence in a secure & centralized data hub, ready for your auditor, and track every action with full transparency and maintain logs to demonstrate accountability.

    4. Showcase Your Compliance:

    Showcase certifications, controls, and real‑time security status to customers and prospects on your Trust Center, and win their trust.

    Conclusion

    While the path to compliance can be complex and costly, leveraging smart tools and best practices will make security compliance easier and eventually, a great competitive advantage. And if you are tired of dealing with compliance manually, give an automation compliance platform like Smartly a try!

    Ready to put compliance on autopilot and close deals faster? Let Smartly streamline your journey today.

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