Co-founded in 2019 with consultant data protection officer Steve Gibson, SDG has undergone a five-year development and beta-testing process before its full launch in late 2023.
The firm’s Prism software helps clients keep track of their accreditation processes for marks such as ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, and UK GDPR certificates, as well as the forthcoming ISO 27002 update.
Managing stakeholders with automated reminders, and a central dashboard to eliminate duplications in activity across multiple accreditations, Prism now has 12 licensed firms, with the latest to join a £100m-plus firm running the program across multiple sites.
Copp told Printweek that the idea came about from his and Gibson’s own experiences managing the ever-changing accreditation processes for mailing firms.
“From our point of view, there had to be an easier way of [maintaining our accreditations],” Copp said.
“We decided that our obsession for all things data protection and ISO 27001 was expensive for businesses, and [the price] could sometimes be the reason for some companies to let the auditing and accreditation slip – and potentially drop the auditing altogether, which is a real shame having invested in the first place.”
Copp added that the accreditation process can be especially burdensome for small businesses, with complex processes often overlapping and pushing prices out of reach for SMEs.
“Our mission was to create an affordable, intuitive system to make internal compliance easier and more organised as well as potentially enabling part of the auditing process to be done remotely,” he said.
After 18 months of beta testing, the software was ready to launch to market. Copp said he hoped to bring a large number of customers on board, with SDG’s aim being to provide an affordable solution to a widespread problem.
“Obviously there’s a commercial element to what we want to do, which is hopefully understandable to everybody – but it is an infinitely affordable platform.
“Our price tag is around the £3,000 mark [for an annual license] for a platform that can basically cover your needs as far as your accreditations are concerned, and save you time and money.”
