A divestiture is one of the most challenging events an IT organization can face. For Keenfinity, a global electronics manufacturer recently carved out from Bosch, it meant building an entire, independent IT landscape under a punishing deadline. Rather than simply replicating their old environment, they seized the opportunity to leap forward, choosing a "cloud-first" strategy with Automic SaaS.
While the initial goal was a rapid, stable migration, the Keenfinity team quickly found themselves leveraging the platform's most advanced features. We sat down with Manuel Hepting, product owner, and Tanmaya Kumar Panda, SAP product owner, to discuss how they not only ensured business continuity but are now using AI-powered automation to save effort and build a smarter future.
Q: What was the primary business challenge you faced during your divestiture from Bosch?
A: Our challenge was speed and separation. As a carve-out, we inherited a complete, complex IT landscape, including all SAP environments and the automation system. Our task was to make this entire environment independent and fully operational for Keenfinity on a very aggressive timeline. We had to stand up a new, isolated infrastructure and migrate everything without disrupting the business. For our critical automation system, building a new on-premises infrastructure from scratch wasn't feasible, as it would have taken far too long. We needed a ready-to-go solution immediately.
Q: You mentioned the automation platform is critical. Can you give us a sense of what it handles?
A: It is the backbone of our business. Most of our core processes are run as automated jobs through Automic. This includes everything from finance and controlling workflows to material master management. Critically, it handles all our logistics—ensuring goods are picked up from plants and shipped to customers. It also manages essential file transfers like bank statements. Some of these jobs run every five minutes, so any disruption would have a huge impact, potentially stopping a factory or halting our supply chain.
Q: Given that urgency, you chose Automic SaaS. But what about the advanced features? Was that part of the initial decision?
A: The initial driver was speed and our new "cloud-first" IT roadmap. The SaaS platform allowed us to transition from Automic Automation on premises to Automic SaaS and become operational within days, which was the most critical factor for our go live. However, we chose a platform that we knew would not only solve our immediate problem but would also grow with us. We wanted a solution that would free us from backend maintenance and constantly provide the latest features and security updates, allowing our team to focus on innovation rather than upkeep.
Q: It sounds like that innovation is already happening. We heard you’re already using the AI capabilities. What is your favorite feature so far?
A: Absolutely. Our favorite capability right now is definitely Automic’s Automation Assistant. In the past, if there was a problem, our team had to spend valuable time digging through logs to diagnose the root cause. With the AI functionality in our current license, the system does that for us. It provides the error information and even suggests potential solutions directly in the failure notification. It saves us a tremendous amount of effort in identifying root causes and deciding on the next steps. It's a huge efficiency gain for the team.
Q: It's impressive that you're already using advanced features. But what about the fundamentals? How has the platform performed in terms of core stability and uptime?
A: The stability has been flawless. We run approximately one million executions every month, and the system runs without interruptions. Since going live, we have had zero downtime outside of the normal, planned maintenance windows, and we haven't needed to raise a single support case. This rock-solid foundation is what gives us the confidence to explore the more advanced AI features. We can focus on innovation because we aren't busy fighting fires.
Q: You’ve mentioned how you’re using AI now. What do your plans for AI-powered automation look like?
A: We are just getting started and want to explore AI much more. The immediate next step is using it to enhance our monitoring, especially during off-hours. We see AI being able to generate alerts for our team, giving us an extra layer of security.
We see huge potential for AI to assist with planning and load balancing by identifying high-volume times and suggesting job rescheduling. It could also reduce our operational costs by helping us create and manage bulk automation objects. It's the key to making our operations not just automated, but truly intelligent.
As the business explores the use of AI agents, we are prepared to provide the necessary orchestration and governance through Automic. This will ensure agents are integrated securely and efficiently into our operations.
