Five Nines of Uptime: How Mission Optimized Kensing's Global AWS Infrastructure

Kensing, a global natural vitamin E and sulfate manufacturer, partnered with Mission to transform its AWS infrastructure after losing critical in-house expertise. Through Mission's managed services and professional services, Kensing achieved dramatic cost reductions, implemented robust 24/7 support for its ERP system, and positioned the company for future AI innovation while supporting rapid global expansion across five sites.

Kensing is a world leader in natural vitamin E, specializing in two business units: pure, plant-based natural vitamin E and phytosterols for food, dietary supplements, and animal nutrition, and low-dioxane sulfates for personal care and home care applications. Originally carved out from BASF in 2021, the company now operates five sites globally, serving customers who value sustainable, natural, and reliable ingredient manufacturing.

Following their 2021 carve-out from BASF, Kensing built an AWS-hosted ERP system but lacked dedicated cloud expertise. An early 2022 AWS outage revealed critical gaps in their support structure, prompting an urgent search for specialized AWS partnership.

AWS directly recommended Mission as a trusted partner when Kensing began evaluating support options. After interviewing three to four potential providers, Mission distinguished itself immediately. Mission offered comprehensive 24/7 service desk support with rapid AWS escalation at a very friendly cost. Mission's Cloud Foundation managed service included 16 hours of monthly provisioning assistance and proactive cost optimization reviews. The flexible, no-commitment engagement model allowed Kensing to test the relationship before making long-term decisions. Most competitors charged thousands more monthly while offering fewer features and limited hours, making Mission a clear standout. Mission's approach centered on genuine partnership rather than transactional service delivery.

Kensing inherited AWS as its cloud platform during the BASF carve-out, chosen primarily for its strong relationship with their ERP provider. The platform's proven track record supporting ERP deployments for small to medium-sized businesses made it the logical choice for the ERP system. AWS eliminated the need for costly on-premises infrastructure, particularly important as the company pursued global expansion and product diversification. The platform's scalability supported their growing operations across multiple continents, while services like Amazon MQ provided reliability that the small IT team could maintain.

Mission immediately deployed Cloud Foundation to establish baseline support and optimization. The team began with comprehensive cost analysis, uncovering hidden expenses Kensing's small IT staff couldn't identify. They discovered lifecycle policies missing from S3 database backups, causing exponential storage growth. Mission helped Kensing extend expiring savings plans while introducing the company to the Reserved Instance Operations (RIO) program, which delivered substantial monthly savings without requiring internal management.

Security enhancements followed quickly. Mission implemented monitoring across Kensing's ~50 EC2 instances, most supporting the ERP environment. They established disaster recovery protocols with cross-region replication and optimized the company's availability zones. The team right-sized over-provisioned instances and eliminated unnecessary development environments accumulated during the company's rapid integration of legacy applications from their Spain and Argentina acquisitions.

Mission connected Kensing's India-based application management team directly with its service desk, enabling weekend maintenance windows to proceed smoothly. This coordination proved invaluable during ERP refreshes requiring backups and potential restores. The partnership extended beyond reactive support to strategic guidance through monthly optimization meetings covering cost, security, and operations. Mission's customer success team conducted regular account reviews, examining new opportunities within the AWS ecosystem.

When Kensing began exploring AI applications, Mission provided access to specialized resources, including AI experts. The company identified promising use cases around customer service automation and intelligent document processing for the lengthy questionnaires customers submit. Mission is positioning Kensing to potentially implement agentic AI solutions in the near future that could transform their customer service mailbox and sales support processes.

The Mission partnership delivered transformative financial and operational outcomes for Kensing. Monthly AWS costs dropped from $55,000 to $32,000 through systematic optimization and environment rationalization. The RIO program alone generated approximately $8,000 to $10,000 in monthly savings while requiring no internal management overhead. Infrastructure costs came in nearly 12% under budget for the year, a remarkable achievement during tight financial conditions.

System reliability reached beyond 99.999% uptime for the ERP system, directly supporting Kensing's competitive advantage in customer service and on-time delivery. The 24/7 support structure protected the company's global operations, preventing potential revenue loss from extended outages. Weekend maintenance windows proceeded without incident, allowing Kensing’s teams to maintain work-life balance and focus on strategic initiatives rather than managing midnight emergency calls.

Kensing's IT team rapidly developed AWS fluency through Mission's ongoing education. The team progressed to confidently discussing EC2 optimization, lifecycle policies, and instance type selection. This knowledge transfer positioned the company to make informed decisions about future AWS investments.

The partnership proved especially valuable during Kensing's corporate transitions. Mission provided continuity when Kensing was acquired. The stable AWS foundation supported rapid integrations and maintained operations throughout ownership changes. Mission's forward-looking guidance on AI implementations has also prepared Kensing to leverage emerging technologies for customer service automation and intelligent document processing, positioning the company to maintain their competitive edge in responsiveness and service quality.