csi Increases Patch Compliance, Reduces Manual Effort with Automated, Integrated Patching

Our Customer

csi entwicklungstechnik (full name) is a leading development partner in the German mobility industry with roots and core services in automotive design and engineering. With over 500 employees across ten locations, csi has supported customers for over 30 years with expertise in vehicle structures, interior and exterior components, electronics, simulation, and project management. Ensuring secure and well-maintained IT systems is critical to this mission, as they enable innovation, collaboration, and the protection of sensitive engineering data.

Adaptiva’s Impact

• Increased patch compliance from less than 35% to approximately 75% within weeks
• Enabled automated patching across more than 200 software products
• Integrated natively with CrowdStrike for real-time vulnerability, visibility, and remediation
• Leveraged peer-to-peer delivery to distribute patches in low-bandwidth locations
• Saved roughly 10 hours per week per IT employee by eliminating manual research, packaging, and parameter configuration

For a lean IT organization, these gains were especially significant, turning a previously manual, time-intensive process into an automated, scalable program.

The Challenges

Before Adaptiva, csi relied on a fully manual patching process through which every software application was individually researched, packaged, and prepared for deployment. 

Increased visibility into its environment revealed that over 200 distinct software products required regular patching. This created an unsustainable workload for csi’s IT team and made it difficult to keep pace with the volume and complexity of updates.

• Manual and resource-intensive patching: The team’s manual work involved significant time and effort, making it difficult to stay current and consistent across the environment.
• Bandwidth and distributed site constraints: With 10 sites across Germany, limited bandwidth at some locations led to inefficient patch distribution and slow rollouts.
• Limited ability to act on vulnerability intelligence: With the introduction of CrowdStrike, csi gained clear visibility into the weaknesses and vulnerabilities across its environment. This visibility alone, however, didn’t reduce its risks.

Jakob said csi then asked: “How can we patch these vulnerabilities to decrease our risk level?"

The Solution

csi selected Adaptiva’s OneSite Patch to automate patching and integrate directly with CrowdStrike Exposure Management. The native integration allowed csi to connect detection with remediation, enabling its team to move from identifying vulnerabilities to patching them.

“We were looking for a solution that just integrates with CrowdStrike and helps us patch the vulnerabilities that we discovered,” Jakob said, adding that Adaptiva’s direct integration, easy patch management, and methodic strategy rollouts were key to their partnership choice. 

Adaptiva’s peer-to-peer technology also addressed csi’s bandwidth challenges by allowing one client to receive updates and distribute patches locally to other endpoints.​

“If you have locations where the bandwidth is not that high, you are happy that you have one client receiving some update and distributing the patches to the other clients,” Jakob said. “So, not every client has to request every patch … that was also a big point for us.”

Equally important was the operational relief delivered by Adaptiva’s metadata team, which continuously researches, packages, and validates patches to enable a truly hands-free patching experience.

Results: Significantly Higher Compliance, Added Time for Strategic Work

Within weeks of deploying Adaptiva, csi saw a dramatic improvement in patch compliance.

“When we started, our compliance rate was about 35%,” Jakob said. “After a few weeks of patching, we increased it to around 70 to 75%.”

Automation also delivered measurable time savings. By eliminating the need for manual research, packaging, and testing of hundreds of applications, csi’s IT staff reclaimed significant weekly hours.

“Roughly 10 hours per week per employee are saved,” Jakob said. “We can now focus on other tasks instead of spending time just preparing patches.”