Appspace is a global workplace experience company whose technology is used by a third of the Fortune 500 to power digital signage, employee communications, and space management solutions at enterprise scale. As the Tampa-based company expanded its product portfolio and customer base, compliance became a regulatory obligation and a strategic imperative. Appspace approached security with a clear philosophy: transparency as a competitive advantage. 

To execute on that vision, Appspace needed an audit partner capable of keeping pace with rapid growth, supporting multiple frameworks, and delivering collaborative expertise that transforms compliance from a cost center into a revenue enabler. Appspace partnered with A-LIGN to achieve SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 3 Type 2, ISO 27001:2022, and ISO 27017:2015 compliance.

The challenge

As Appspace expanded its compliance program, the company sought a more streamlined approach to managing multiple compliance frameworks.

Evidence collection relied heavily on manual processes, creating what the team described internally as a “tax” on its most valuable technical resources. Every audit cycle required significant time from engineers who would otherwise be focused on product development. Compounding this, Appspace was managing its ISO and SOC certifications through separate workstreams, resulting in redundant tasks, inconsistent testing methodologies, and duplicated effort across teams.

As the company’s product footprint grew, so did the complexity of its compliance requirements. Appspace needed a partner that could scale alongside the business and cover its broadening set of frameworks without straining budgets or extending timelines.

“A-LIGN helped us eliminate the year-round strain on our internal teams by helping us consolidate our ISO and SOC programs into a single, streamlined workstream that scaled with our business without breaking our budget or timelines.”
-Sam Baxter, CISO

Why A-LIGN

Appspace selected A-LIGN as a strategic partner because of its expertise, collaborative approach, and ability to support the company’s evolving compliance needs. A-LIGN’s audit management platform, A-SCEND, enabled Appspace to centralize evidence collection and track audit progress in real time, directly addressing the manual-process problem. Rather than a rigid, checklist-driven approach, A-LIGN’s audit teams invested time in understanding Appspace’s cloud-native workflows, delivering pragmatic, risk-based guidance that kept audits productive and collaborative.

A-LIGN’s breadth of expertise across SOC, ISO, privacy, and AI governance meant Appspace could consolidate all of its certification needs with one trusted partner — harmonizing audit cycles, eliminating redundant evidence requests, and ensuring consistent interpretation of controls across every framework.

Appspace’s engagement with A-LIGN started with SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 to establish baseline trust with enterprise buyers, then expanded naturally as the business evolved. ISO 27017 was added to address cloud-service-provider-specific controls.

“As our compliance program grew, A-LIGN grew with us. Their expertise across frameworks meant we could add certifications without starting from scratch — the same trusted team, the same seamless process, every time.”
-Sam Baxter, CISO

Results

The partnership with A-LIGN has delivered measurable impact across revenue, operational efficiency, and brand credibility.

Appspace’s compliance program now supports enterprise sales by helping customers meet security and compliance requirements with confidence. By presenting a well-documented, multi-certified security posture, the company can build immediate trust with prospective customers and close larger deals faster. By tying each new certification to the revenue it unlocks, Appspace can quickly make the case for compliance investments across the business.

By consolidating all audits under A-LIGN and leveraging A-SCEND, Appspace has significantly reduced the time its engineering teams spend on evidence gathering. Running SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and ISO 27017 in a harmonized workflow means that teams respond once to satisfy multiple frameworks — rather than answering the same questions repeatedly across separate audit engagements.

Appspace’s security-first brand is reinforced by tangible third-party validations: an A+ rating on SSL Labs and status as a Microsoft 365 Certified Partner. These recognitions are made possible by the rigorous, audit-ready compliance program that A-LIGN helped build and maintain — signaling to enterprise customers in regulated environments that Appspace’s security posture is continuously validated by a world-class audit partner.

Looking ahead to its 2026/2027 roadmap, Appspace is focused on two priorities: maturing its AI governance capabilities by continuing to testi against OWASP LLM standards and maintaining its ISO 42001 benchmark. A-LIGN’s expanding service portfolio in AI assurance positions the partnership to support these next-stage processes.

“As our compliance program continues to evolve — especially around AI governance — A-LIGN’s world-class expertise gives us the confidence to take on whatever comes next. They’re not just our auditor; they’re the partner we’ll grow with for years to come.”
-Sam Baxter, CISO

About Appspace

Appspace is the workplace experience company that keeps everyone in the know. Empower your entire workforce with a single platform for employee communications, digital signage, space reservation, visitor management, and more, making work an experience everyone loves. Join the more than 170 Fortune 500 companies and a global community of users who rely on Appspace every day. Learn more at www.appspace.com.