BRITECITY
The timeline to CMMC readiness — and why the November 10, 2026 deadline means starting the clock now.
Make IT Easy
The Deadline
The Math
The full path — foundation, the 12-week assessment, the proposal, and remediation — runs roughly six to seven months of focused work.
That is before you schedule a C3PAO or absorb any longer remediation on the harder gaps.
Subtract that from November 10, 2026 and the start line is now. There is no slack left to wait.
You cannot be awarded a Phase 2 contract without the required certification. Starting when the clause lands in your solicitation is starting too late.
The Timeline
Sign the managed IT services agreement.
Discovery, documentation, and tooling rollout get underway.
Onboarding complete. The managed IT services foundation is established.
The third-party Security Maturity Level Assessment and CMMC assessment begins.
The assessment ends with the checklist of gaps.
Your managed IT services organization delivers the remediation proposal.
You review and sign off on the scope.
Technical remediation runs — sometimes longer — while your team works its own gaps in parallel.
Roughly six to seven months of focused work — before you account for scheduling a C3PAO or any longer remediation. That is why aligning around November 10, 2026 means engaging now.
The Big Picture
Your managed IT services company
A provider that understands your network establishes the security services running your infrastructure, documents where data lives and how it moves, and resolves general security concerns. This is the foundation everything else is measured against.
3rd-party CMMC consultant
Once the foundation is in place, an accredited consultant runs a 12-week Security Maturity Level Assessment with a CMMC add-on. Your leadership team and your IT company answer questions and the assessment produces a checklist of gaps.
Shared — you, your IT company, your processes
BRITECITY delivers a proposal to address the gaps. After sign-off, technical remediation runs in parallel with the process and HR work your organization owns.
Phase 1 — Day 1 to 60
A provider who actually understands your network — not a stranger learning it during an audit
Establish and document the security services running across your infrastructure
Identify where your data lives — every system, app, and cloud tenant that holds it
Map how data moves through the organization — between people, systems, and vendors
Surface general security concerns — and make sure they are solved, not just noted
Phase 1 — Why First
A third-party assessment measures your environment against the standard. If the environment is undocumented or unstable, the assessment stalls before it starts.
During the assessment the consultant asks technical questions and depends on your IT provider to answer them and to own the remediation work that follows.
Onboarding with a managed IT partner gives you a documented, monitored, and stable environment — the only thing worth measuring against a compliance standard.
Phase 2 — Day 61 onward
Once the foundation is in place, a third-party CMMC consultant engages under a 12-week consulting agreement. Typically your leadership team and your managed IT services company are in the room together — leadership knows the business, IT knows the environment.
Phase 2 — Scope
The Output
The 12-week assessment ends with a gap analysis — a checklist of everything standing between your current state and the standard. Ownership of that checklist splits three ways.
Process and policy gaps — often HR-related. Written policies, security awareness, personnel and offboarding procedures, business decisions about scope.
Technical gaps — MFA, encryption, monitoring, segmentation, account lifecycle, configuration, and the tooling that enforces the controls.
Items that need both — leadership decisions paired with technical implementation, documented together in the plan.
Phase 3 — The Proposal
After the assessment, we deliver a proposal to address the gaps identified during the Security Maturity Level Assessment and CMMC assessment. It scopes the technical remediation BRITECITY owns, with effort and timeline attached.
Phase 3 — Execution
Proposal scoped and delivered — roughly two weeks after the gap analysis
You review and sign the proposal
Technical remediation executes — typically four to eight weeks, sometimes longer depending on what needs to be accomplished
In parallel, your organization works through its own tasks — the process and HR gaps it owns
Ownership
Next Steps
Free 30-minute call. We map where you are in the workflow today, confirm the level your contracts require, and lay out the realistic timeline to November 10, 2026.
Sign the managed IT services agreement and begin onboarding — the foundation step every later step depends on.
Once the foundation is in place, the third-party consultant runs the 12-week assessment that produces your gap checklist.
We propose the work to close the technical gaps; your team closes the process and HR gaps in parallel.
britecity.com/book-a-call — 30 minutes, free, no commitment. We map where you are in the workflow and the path to November 10, 2026.
Make IT Easy