Building Trust With Data: Lessons from Smartwyre’s SOC 2 Journey
Dan Covill
If you’re anywhere near the SaaS (“software as a service”) world in 2023, you’ve heard the phrase “SOC 2 audit” before.
And like with any audit or compliance process, an SOC 2 report does take work. But it’s also a critical mechanism for building trust with your customers and staying up to date with the latest expert advice on data security. And in today’s Ag industry, this is more important than ever.
As a cloud-native company in the Ag space, we have a pretty unique vantage point over data infrastructure that departs from traditional systems, data vulnerabilities throughout the industry, and what it takes for companies to adopt true data security in today’s environment.
The SOC 2 audit process has been just one framework for us to keep learning how to best protect customer data. We thought we’d share a few perspectives we gained through our most recent audit — particularly on how the Ag industry as a whole can thrive in the future.
But first… what is SOC 2?
A SOC 2 audit is the basic mechanism for making sure software companies are meeting strict standards when handling their customers’ data. (SOC stands for System and Organization Controls.) These standards revolve around five principles:
Security
Privacy
Availability
Confidentiality
Processing integrity
A company like Smartwyre will put in place a security strategy and then a set of internal “controls” which ensure that the company is operating according to its control standards. An audit will make sure those controls are sufficient and that the company is “walking the talk.” Just like a financial audit, it eventually leads to a SOC 2 audit report, which provides a company and its customers with info on how the business aligns with safety and security protocols, controls against potential data breaches, and maintains customer privacy.
Our SOC 2 journey at Smartwyre: 4 lessons
The journey to SOC 2 certification is a months or years-long process for most enterprises.
First, there’s Type 1 certification, which assesses an organization’s compliance at a specific point in time. Then there’s Type 2, which focuses on ongoing monitoring.
The more basic Type 1 certification often takes organizations around 6 months to a year to complete. The more complicated, intensive, Type 2 process will take another year. If an enterprise has manual reporting procedures or a lack of interest/commitment from team members, their timelines can slow down even more.
At Smartwyre, we finished both Type 1 and Type 2 certification in 10 months.
That efficiency is possible at other organizations, too. Here are a few things that helped us accelerate our timeline — and things that you could prioritize in your own corporate security environment even if you are not preparing for a SOC 2 audit:
Automation and digital tools
Before we even started down the SOC 2 path, we had many tools in place that could boost the process. This included using SaaS products that already have built-in integrations to automate much of the compliance reporting work. That reduced the workload on our team, plus ensured accuracy.
We also used a tool called OneTrust to record and keep track of our entire compliance and internal audit process. It provided alerts to keep everyone on track with their controls oversight, audit process contributions. It holds us all accountable to an ambitious timeline.
Secure data infrastructure
As an industry (and as a society) we’re moving past the days of keeping all your data stored in a corporate data center with physical servers. While that method served everyone well for a while, it just doesn’t keep up with the pace of innovation — particularly by hackers. Put everything on one local server, and you’re leaving yourself open to attack.
Cloud storage provides an extra layer of peace of mind. Since data is usually copied to multiple servers, there’s more redundancy — and less chance of losing your data completely.
Not all cloud systems are created equal, of course — which is why it’s critical to pick the right cloud. At Smartwyre, the backbone of everything we do is through Microsoft Azure: long considered one of the most secure digital infrastructures on the market.
No cloud option is completely safe from hacks for eternity. But Azure is about as close as you can get today. (It’s why the Department of Defense uses it…)
There’s a lot of upside to basing internal data security on the work tech giants are already doing. Microsoft invests over $1 billion a year, for example, into security. And we get to benefit from that investment: from regular tests and vulnerability scans, we’re constantly up to date on potential issues. Because of the inherent security of the Azure platform, our customers’ data is even safer with us than it is on their own internal systems.
Whole company buy-in
Getting everyone on board with a security / SOC 2 process is make-or-break. If there are team members resisting the process, failing to fulfill their reporting duties, or rolling their eyes and deprioritizing the process, that will inevitably slow down your organization’s timeline. Our Executive Leadership has personal responsibility for this, and John, our CEO is regularly checking up on how things are going.
With those SaaS tools and automations in place, buy-in gets much easier because they help reduce tedious work.
But it’s also important to communicate the importance of a SOC 2 report. When everyone can see the “why” behind the work, they’re more likely to get on board. (We’ll get into more detail on those reasons below.)
Internal agility
Depending on the size of your organization, the number of systems you run, how many layers of leadership or other departments you have, etc, it’s possible your enterprise is pretty unwieldy. Getting all those pieces moving in the same direction simply takes longer.
The relative age of our organization also made us nimble. With less history, comes fewer “legacy” processes to overhaul. Sometimes, larger organizations that have been doing things “their” way for decades take longer to finish their SOC 2 audit because it takes so long to undo or revamp their existing, entrenched processes.
Modern success requires modern solutions. Nowhere is that truer than with data security. Corporate data centers may have been fine in previous generations. But that on-premise software is simply more vulnerable in today’s world.
So if you’re a larger organization, remember: you can’t always control how big your team is. But you can control how willing you are to depart with outdated processes. That flexibility is key to a painless SOC 2 journey — and the larger victory of data security in a modern world.
Why does SOC 2 matter?
It’s a must for our enterprise customers with equally serious standards. Plain and simple: any company that wants to do business with large-scale enterprises needs SOC 2. Without proof that you take customer data seriously… well, other businesses aren’t going to take you seriously.
Externally, it develops customer trust. It’s nice to build one-on-one relationships with your customer base, and to be able to say, “Trust us. We’ll take care of your data.” But it’s even better when you can provide proof that that trust is warranted — and backed by an independent third-party auditor.
Internally, it helps streamline systems and reduce technical debt. The SOC 2 audit process shows your business what you need to clean up — early. This keeps everyone from getting accustomed to doing things the wrong way for years on end (some refer to this as “technical debt” or “organizational debt”). An SOC 2 audit helps nip those issues in the bud, plus empowers you to be proactive. With the information you learn from your audit, you can make small policy tweaks as you go, rather than needing a massive overhaul later if restrictions get tighter, or (even worse) there’s a breach.
It sets your business up for future expansion. Some regions are already more tightly regulating data security. Europe has done so, and California is increasingly tightening the belt. Through the SOC 2 journey, organizations can get on board with better security and data privacy — which can set them up to do business in regions where increased regulations are standard.
Why SOC 2 is critical for agribusinesses
This audit is not just a process meant for other industries: it’s particularly important for Ag.
The industry is dealing with more data now than ever — whether that’s transaction data from the Ag input supply chain, or other types of farm-based data like satellite imagery, planting data, or machinery data.
If you’re a business that touches any of that data, SOC 2 proves that you’re taking your customers’ information seriously. And that security is maybe even more important than your other value-adds. Sure, your company’s technology might compute X millions of records per second. But what customer wants to give you all their data if it’s going to be spread all over the internet?
Within Ag, it’s also important to recognize the inherent cautiousness many in this industry operate with. (And for good reason!). Having a SOC 2 certification is a nice way of saying “trust us” — then backing that up with evidence you’re doing things the right way.
Many in Ag are still leery about anything cloud-based. It can seem like an ethereal concept (where is the cloud?). But in reality, it’s a much safer infrastructure than having all your customers’ data stored on a physical server in the back of a retail office. That eggs-in-one-basket way of data storage leaves companies more vulnerable to hacks.
The bottom line
SOC 2 audits are more important than ever, thanks to regulations getting tighter nationwide (and worldwide), the historic amount of data the Ag industry now handles, and the increase of cybersecurity issues in Ag.
Going through the SOC 2 report process (Type 1 and 2) provides layers of proof that your organization is doing the right thing. It’s not just a report saying your processes were secure once. It’s proof you’re continuing to uphold privacy and security standards over the long term.
Adding compliance processes or reporting to your to-do list is never anyone’s favorite. But a SOC 2 report is increasingly a must-have for enterprises — including agribusinesses. The sooner you begin your journey, the sooner you can enjoy the benefits, like more customer trust, more streamlined, secure systems, and more peace of mind about the data you control.
As a cloud-native organization, we were lucky to have the infrastructure already in place to streamline our SOC 2 journey. But we also made that luck. As a company, we’ve leaned into innovation, modern solutions, and data security since our inception. Those lessons are only going to get more important as the amount of data — and data vulnerabilities — in the Ag industry increases.
