By Travis Goldbach, VP of GTM at Coalfire Federal
The challenge with CMMC has never been a lack of options.
It has been a lack of clarity.
Across the Defense Industrial Base (DIB), organizations are navigating a crowded ecosystem of advisors, MSPs, readiness firms, assessors, and technology providers. Each offers a piece of the solution, but they are rarely aligned around the full path to certification.
The result is predictable: Companies spend money in the wrong places, engage partners out of sequence, duplicate effort across multiple vendors, and ultimately delay certification.
The issue is not effort. It is coordination.
The CMMC Partner Assurance Network (CPAN) was built to bring structure and trust to the ecosystem.
The CPAN Marketplace is where that vision becomes actionable.
The Marketplace provides a centralized, accessible platform where organizations across the DIB can discover, evaluate, and engage with trusted CMMC partners. Each partner is vetted for their ability to deliver real outcomes aligned to certification.
This is not a directory. It is a curated environment designed to remove friction and accelerate progress.
The CPAN Marketplace is built around a simple principle.
Make it easy for organizations to do the right things, in the right order, with the right partners.
Every partner within the Marketplace is selected based on their ability to support the CMMC lifecycle. This includes initial scoping, advisory, remediation, technology implementation, and assessment readiness.
This reduces one of the biggest risks organizations face today: engaging providers who do not understand how their work connects to the final assessment.
The Marketplace is structured to support the full CMMC journey.
■Advisory and scoping
■Gap assessments and readiness
■Remediation and engineering support
■Managed services and ongoing compliance
■Certified third-party assessments
Organizations no longer need to assemble this ecosystem themselves.
Partners within CPAN operate within a coordinated model. This reduces conflicting guidance and ensures that efforts across vendors are aligned to actual assessment expectations.
This eliminates one of the most common failure points in CMMC preparation. Disconnected workstreams.
One of the most immediate benefits of the CPAN Marketplace is access to preferred, partner aligned pricing.
Organizations entering through CPAN gain access to:
■Discounted advisory and readiness services
■Reduced cost remediation and implementation support
■Preferred pricing on bundled service offerings
■Streamlined engagement models designed to reduce cost and time to certification
This is not about driving cost down at the expense of quality. It is about eliminating inefficiencies and ensuring that organizations are investing in the right activities from the start while avoiding rework and unnecessary spend.
The CPAN Marketplace is intentionally built to serve both sides of the DIB ecosystem.
Suppliers gain a clear, structured entry point into the CMMC ecosystem, with:
■ Immediate access to trusted partners
■Simplified decision making
■ Reduced cost through coordinated offerings
■ A faster, more predictable path to certification
Primes can leverage the Marketplace to strengthen their supply chain by:
■Directing suppliers to an approved ecosystem of partners
■Reducing variability in how suppliers approach CMMC
■Increasing confidence in supplier readiness
■ Accelerating compliance across the supply chain
Today, many organizations approach CMMC through trial and error. They engage multiple vendors, receive conflicting advice, spend money out of sequence, and ultimately have to course correct.
The CPAN Marketplace eliminates that model.
It provides a structured, trusted starting point where organizations can move forward with confidence, knowing they are aligned to what actually drives certification.
The CPAN Marketplace brings that coordination into a single, accessible environment. It connects organizations with the right partners, at the right time, with the right level of investment.
Less confusion. Less rework. More progress.
The path to CMMC does not need to be complex.
With the CPAN Marketplace, it becomes clear, coordinated, and achievable.
Travis Goldbach is a cybersecurity and compliance leader with 20 years of experience driving growth and go-to-market strategy for federally regulated industries. He currently leads Coalfire Federal’s unified GTM strategy and previously guided AWS toward CMMC certification while helping customers advance secure, scalable compliance in the cloud.
