The Top 10 Benefits Of Implementing An ISMS Or ISO 27001

In this blog, we take a look at the benefits that implementing an ISMS can provide for your business.

We've broken the top benefits down into four main categories: competitive advantage, strategic and operational, reducing risk, and reputation and culture. Here they are at a glance:

Competitive Advantage

1. Win more B2B business and tenders

2. Open up new markets and sectors

3. Improve customer retention

Strategic and Operational

4. Reduce time to complete tenders

5. Attract investors and improve your acquisition potential

6. Make your IT systems more robust

Reduce Risk

7. Secure your and your customers’ data

8. Reduce the likelihood of data breaches and fines while protecting your assets

Reputation and Culture

9. Promote a strong culture that attracts and retains staff

10. Show the world you take information security seriously.

Ready to learn more about how implementing an ISMS or achieving information security certifications like ISO 27001 can benefit your business?

1. Win more B2B business and tenders

More and more organisations demand an ISMS, and most commonly ISO/IEC 27001 certification from ALL of their suppliers. This can make having an ISMS the difference between winning and losing business. In a survey by the BSI group 43% reported an increase in sales after implementing ISO/IEC 27001.

2. Open up new markets and sectors

Sectors where you can win more business and who increasingly value information security is not limited to the Public Sector or Financial Services. Think Infrastructure, Rail, Supermarkets, Housing Associations, Regulatory Industries, Utilities, Telecoms, Insurance, Healthcare, Insurance, Membership organisations, Retail, Travel and many more.

Read more about the commercial impact of ISO/IEC 27001 certification.

3. Improve customer retention

With increasing fines and reputational damage more and more organisations are increasing their information security requirements expected from their supply chain. What your customer might have been happy with yesterday is not necessarily what they are happy with today. An ISMS makes the systems you rely on to run your organisation more robust and efficient. This means customers are less likely to have a bad experience by systems going down or delays to orders for example.

The BSI survey found that 51% of organisations saw an increase in external customer satisfaction following the implementation of an ISO/IEC 27001 certified ISMS.

4. Reduce time to complete tenders

Tender IT questionnaires can consume your key resources time. If you are constantly asking your CTO to fill out lengthy IT tender questionnaires, consider asking your prospects would you need to fill out the questionnaire if you were ISO/IEC 27001 certified? Often simply writing we are ISO/IEC 27001 certified will negate the need to even fill it out. How much easier is that for their compliance team to vet your submission and make you their number one choice to win the business?

5. Attract Investors and improve your acquisition potential

A lack of a robust ISMS can seriously put off investors and anyone looking to acquire your organisation. This is a key requirement for many acquirers due diligence. Being ISO/IEC 27001 certified ensures there won’t be any nasty surprises like there was for Marriot Hotels in 2020 who were fined £18.4Million by the ICO. For a data breach that happened in a business two years before they acquired them. Read more: ICO fines Marriott £18.4m fine over GDPR data breach..

6. Make your IT systems more robust

If you rely on technical systems that you manage to run your business, the processes and procedures you will adopt by implementing a robust ISMS will ensure good management of those systems. The BSI group survey found that 47.3% of respondents reported reduced downtime for IT systems, after becoming ISO/IEC 27001 certified.

7. Secure your and your customers’ data

The data you hold in an organisation is an asset, as much or even more than a building or a server. Protect it and show your customers you are protecting it.

8. Reduce the likelihood of data breaches and fines while protecting your assets

According to the UK government's own Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2020, almost half of businesses (46%) and a quarter of charities (26%) report having a cyber security breach or attack in the last 12 months. Contrast that with the BSI survey, where 51.6% of 645 ISO/IEC 27001 certified organisations say security incidents decreased after certification.

This graphic from the government Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2020, shows the percentage of firms experiencing breaches by type of organisation.

9. Promotes a strong culture that attracts and retains staff

Your employee’s data and your customer’s data is valuable to them, it is part of your responsibility as a leader in your organisation to promote a culture that cares for, and supports the importance of protecting data. Nothing demonstrates this more than adopting an ISMS, becoming ISO/IEC 27001 accredited, putting in place enterprise-class software like Hicomply to manage it all, or all of the above.

10. Show the world you take information security seriously

The calibre of your organisation will be elevated with anyone that is important for your business. Your prospects, customers, partners, investors, employees, and even your competitors. Accreditation demonstrates your capability in the area of information security. See how seriously Microsoft take the importance of accreditations here.

But you are not Microsoft, I hear you say. Well, in contrast, the senior managers at Hicomply launched Kykloud, a very successful property technology business in 2011. They already knew that ISO/IEC 27001 was going to have a huge positive impact on the business and so embarked on accreditation when the business was less than 1 year old with only 5 employees. Kykloud went on to secure it’s biggest ever contract with the UK Department of Education.

Hicomply was created to make it easier for you to achieve and maximise these benefits. Get in touch to find out more about our information security management software and consultancy services.