What is A Gap Assessment?
A gap assessment in the CMMC context is a comprehensive evaluation of your organization’s current cybersecurity practices and how they align with the CMMC requirements. It’s not just about ticking boxes—it’s about identifying critical vulnerabilities and gaps in compliance that could impact your ability to secure government contracts. This process offers a clear pathway to improving your security posture, helping you proactively mitigate risks and strengthen your defenses against evolving cyber threats.
By identifying areas for improvement, a gap assessment ensures that your organization doesn’t just meet technical controls but also builds a robust, sustainable cybersecurity framework. It allows you to streamline operations, allocate resources effectively, and fast-track your journey toward CMMC certification. In an increasingly competitive market, achieving CMMC compliance boosts your reputation, enhances trust with clients, and positions your company to win valuable government contracts. It’s a vital step in safeguarding your organization and ensuring long-term success in the defense sector.
Benefits of a Gap Assessment
Our gap assessments offer a range of meaningful benefits that reflect our commitment to ethical, people-focused practices. By prioritizing your team’s well-being and the integrity of your operations, we provide recommendations and action plans that enhance both security and collaboration.
Our Step-by-Step Approach
Guided by Integrity and Collaboration
Guided by Integrity and Collaboration
1. Scope Definition
The first step of a successful gap assessment is defining its scope. We collaborate with your team to identify which systems, data, and processes fall within the relevant compliance framework, such as CMMC, ISO, or NIST. This ensures that all critical areas are thoroughly addressed and lays a clear foundation for the assessment. Our commitment to ethical practices means aligning our evaluation with your organization’s specific goals, minimizing ambiguity, and fostering mutual understanding and trust.
2. Current State Analysis
After the scope is defined, we perform a comprehensive review of your current cybersecurity and compliance practices. This includes evaluating policies, procedures, and controls, with an emphasis on both technical effectiveness and human-centered approaches. By engaging directly with your personnel, we develop a realistic, collaborative understanding of how your organization’s practices align with compliance standards. Our goal is to create a balanced assessment that reflects real-world practices and builds the groundwork for ethical, sustainable improvements.
3. Gap Identification
In this phase, we identify any gaps or deficiencies between your current practices and compliance standards. Our assessment goes beyond technical shortcomings to explore underlying processes and cultural factors that may impact compliance. We believe that identifying gaps is not about finding fault—it’s about uncovering opportunities for meaningful growth, enhanced collaboration, and continuous learning within your organization. Addressing these gaps helps strengthen your security posture and fosters a more cohesive security culture.
4. Recommendations and Action Plan
We offer tailored, actionable recommendations to help close identified gaps with a focus on ethical, people-driven solutions. Our collaborative approach ensures that every action plan aligns with your organization’s culture, operational needs, and strategic goals. By fostering a spirit of integrity, gratitude, and kindness, we enable your organization to achieve compliance while building a positive and enduring security culture. Our team remains engaged throughout the process, providing support and guidance at every step.
Common Use Cases
A gap assessment with SMPL-C is valuable in a variety of contexts and always conducted with a focus on ethical practices and human-centered solutions:
The benefits of our assessments extend far beyond a simple compliance check. They provide a roadmap for ongoing improvement and engagement, offering lasting value to your organization.
Real-World Results with a Human-Centered Approach
Case Study: How SMPL-C Helped This Small Business with CMMC Level 1 Self-Attestation Compliance Quickly and Efficiently
A small logistics company managing shipments for federal supply chains was struggling to navigate the complex requirements of Level 1 CMMC compliance. With limited resources and no dedicated compliance team, they needed a solution that would simplify the process while ensuring they met all requirements.
SMPL-C provided its AI-powered compliance platform, streamlining the journey to self-attestation. The process included an automated evidence documentation collection and verification feature, ensuring all required materials were in place. The platform then generated a tailored gap assessment checklist, guiding the business through each compliance step – like implementing basic safeguards for Federal Contract Information (FCI).
SMPL-C’s tools also included templates and pre-filled forms to help them complete their submission in the PiEE system without any confusion. The automation and clear guidance reduced the time spent on compliance from months to just a few weeks.
Within 4 short weeks, the company submitted their self-attestation confidently, knowing they met all Level 1 requirements. By leveraging SMPL-C, they saved over 100 hours of internal effort, allowing their team to focus on other business priorities.
“We thought CMMC compliance was going to be a nightmare, but SMPL-C made it simple. The platform took care of the hard part—sorting our documents and guiding us step by step allowing us to submit our self-attestation in the PiEE system with confidence. We couldn’t have done it this efficiently without SMPL-C!”
Bill Jones – Mid-sized Defense Manufacturing Contractor