EDITEL Journal 1/2019 EN

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EDITORIAL

© Petra Spiola

VIENNA

Safeguarding your trust We owe the successful corporate history of EDITEL of almost 30 years and the concurrent ongoing Gerd Marlovits evolvement of our EDI platform CEO eXite mostly to one thing: our clients’ dedication and trust. Since day one, we have strived to include our users in all our development processes. We are bringing one of these EDI pioneers and “co-developers” into the spotlight. It is the spice manufacturer Kotányi whose director of IT made a compelling point by emphasizing that nothing could get done today without the “secret ingredient” EDI (see page 1).

In addition to such renowned and long-standing clients, we now serve many new clients in a variety of industries.

One of them is the innovative Tyrol-based cosmetics company CURA which relies on the services of EDITEL in its challenging business transactions with drugstores (see page 3). This issue illustrates our wide range of ­clients and their different needs. What they all have in common is their trust in us. This is true for our technology as well as for all the people behind them. We will ­always safeguard your trust. With us, our clients are ­clearly on the safe side.

THE SECRET INGREDIENT Kotányi relies on a unique ingredient called EDI to ensure that approximately 250,000 electronic messages per year get processed smoothly.

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DI? I barely notice it’s there, it just works!“ That’s how Martin Lorenz perceives EDI. Mr. Lorenz took the position of director of IT last year, and is now also responsible for all things EDI at the spice producer Kotányi. The level of responsibility associated with EDI doesn’t become evident until one looks at the volume of data processed via EDI every year. At Kotányi, this amounts to an average of 250,000 EDI messages per year, which are exchanged via the EDI platform eXite by EDITEL. For Kotányi, the top priority is speed because orders

need to be filled within 24 hours. Any orders (ORDERS) received by 11 a.m. are delivered the same day. More often than not, these orders can include more than 150 different items, as Martin Lorenz explained: “Without EDI, it would just be impossible to process these orders in such a short period of time.”

When it comes to Electronic Data Interchange in the company’s export business – after all, Kotányi ­exports 71% of its total production – the company is

IN BRIEF Former CEO of EDITEL, Peter Franzmair, receives the Decoration of Honor in Silver https://www.editel.eu/news/latest/article/austrianfederal-ministry-for-digital-and-economic-affairs/ EDITEL CZ celebrates its 25-year anniversary www.editel.eu/events/latest/event/25-years-edi L‘Oréal nominated for Living Standard Awards www.gs1.at/livingstandardsaward

Follow us!

Invoice required: EDITEL at the REGAL industry meeting https://new.regal.at/de/branchentreff-info

Happy reading!

Gerd Marlovits

ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE otányi 1 KInternational supply chain management n brief IOther news from the EDITEL Group otányi 2 KInternational supply chain management Österreichische Warenhandels-AG SPAR PDF orders to very small international importers ctiveIT aEDI/ERP integration for produce manufacturers URA-Marketing GmbH 3 CIntegrated order processing at the Tyrol-based cosmetics ­company S1 Austria GmbH GElectronic invoices automatically created in PDF format chain 4 FEDIelbercloudbakery solution for this long-standing Austrian company ackaldrin B Upstream EDI

Conference: Catering of the future - with Vapiano case study presentation https://www.editel.eu/events/latest/event/syga-­ conference-2019/ The EDITEL JOURNAL is published as a supplement to GS1 Information in a total of 13,000 copies. It is available in German, English as well as in Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Croatian for our international clients. To download the Journal as an epaper, please visit www.editel. eu/press/publications. If you have any suggestions, please contact us at info@editel.at

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editelJOURNAL Corporate Magazine of the EDITEL Group

gies.” The fact that all countries operate centrally via a shared ERP system (Infor) is also a great plus.

A DAY AT KOTÁNYI

BY THE NUMBERS ABOUT KOTÁNYI Founded in 1881 in the Hungarian city of ­Szeged, Kotányi is one of the most successful family-owned businesses in Austria. In addition to being the market leader in Austria, this company specialized in spices also ranks among the top brands on the market in 20 countries in central and eastern Europe. After increasing its sales by 5 percent to reach 165 million euro in 2018, Kotányi continues to grow. Headquartered in Wolkersdorf in Lower Austria, the company has 570 employees.

also a true EDI pioneer. Kotányi exchanges messages via eXite with a total of eight countries. In addition to Austria, they work with Germany, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland,

Support by EDITEL is usually required for system upgrades. In the recent past, these included, for example, the processing of invoices (INVOIC) and credits via EDI in Hungary, e-signature in the Czech Republic and the introduction of receipt advices (RECADV) for Spar in Slovenia. In the majority of cases, it is the client who defines these special EDI requirements. “We do everything in our power to implement such client requests within one to two weeks,” said Martin Lorenz. When it comes to the company’s own employees, Kotányi is also very innovative in the area of EDI. One case in point is buyIT, an online order portal by EDI, that Kotányi uses for its field service employees. It allows them to process orders online while still at the client’s or shortly afterwards

1 million products produced 4,500 different article numbers 3,000-5,000 order items Up to 1,000 EDI messages Clients in more than 40 countries 24 hours from order to delivery

Slovenia and Slovakia. Internationally, things also run smoothly according to Mr. Lorenz: “Throughout Europe, we mostly deal with the same retail chains, which translates into plenty of syner-

using a PC or a tablet, which, according to Mr. Lorenz, “gives our field service employees a good overview about the current orders.”

Asked about future upgrades and improvements in the area of EDI, he believes the largest potential lies in payment processing, which is why he plans to encourage the introduction of remittance advices (REMADV) in the future.

Generally speaking, what counts for the new director of IT is “simply that everything runs as smoothly as before because we cannot afford to not deliver our products even for one single day.”

Now and in the future, the “secret ingredient” EDI will make sure this won’t happen. n

kotanyi.at

CLICK TO ORDER very day, more than 600 business partners, ranging from large manufacturers to very small producers, deliver their products to the eight large retail warehouses and 1,600 Austrian stores (INTERSPAR, EUROSPAR, SPAR, SPAR Gourmet) operated by the retail company SPAR. This includes the transmission of roughly 6 million EDI transactions, which ensure that shelves are stocked with myriad products at all times.

It would be unthinkable to handle these highly complex logistics processes with paper documents or even via fax.

This is one of the reasons why SPAR has always strived for swift and user-friendly EDI connections. Case in point: orders to very small producers abroad are sent as PDFs. A simple e-mail with a link to the PDF order is used. This has the advantage that SPAR will receive confirmation as soon as the supplier has clicked on the link so that SPAR will know that the order has been received. On the technical side, data at SPAR leaves the company as usual in EDIFACT format (ORDERS) and is then converted to PDF format by EDITEL. “Sending simple order e-mails resulted in a lot of room for error and in some cases, due to

© AlexRaths - iStockphoto.com

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a lack of order confirmations, orders got lost somewhere along the way. Thanks to this solution developed in collaboration with our EDI service provider of many years, EDTEL, the error rate is now almost zero,” explained Daniel Schuster, head of e-purchasing/ B2B projects at SPAR. Klaus Schaffer, product manager at EDITEL, added:“ We strive to develop the right solution for SPAR and every one of their EDI partners, in an effort of making digital data flows run just as smoothly as physical flows of merchandise.”

For Daniel Schuster, the full automation of the process, from electronic orders to electronic despatch advices (DESADV) and from there to electronic invoices (INVOIC), is still a priority: “Our goal at SPAR is and remains to have fully inte­ grated EDI because this is the only way of fully leveraging the benefits of this technology now and in the future,” he said. n

AUTOMATION GAINS GROUND IN THE FRESH ­PRODUCE INDUSTRY Thanks to its collaboration with the software service provider activeIT, EDITEL now serves additional clients in the fresh produce industry.

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hen it comes to fruit and vegetables, today’s consumers are more demanding than ever. They want their fruit and vegetables to be freshly picked and harvested while being naturally beautiful and without any imperfections. It goes without saying that customers expect a full range of products to be available in sufficient quantities at all times. It is exactly these high customer demands that make merchandise procurement in this industry so complex and fast-paced. In addition, stores frequently change their orders. Another challenge is that so-called substitute articles may be delivered when the originally ordered article is not available. For example, if grapes are no longer available in plastic containers, they will be delivered in cardboard boxes. Both ERP and

EDI systems need to be able to handle these challenges if they are to support the physical flow of merchandise at the highest level. The Austrian software provider and consultant activeIT offers an ERP system tailored to the needs of this industry, which is successfully used by many renowned clients. To ensure that all EDI connections run smoothly, activeIT relies on the expertise of its partner EDITEL. Marko Klein, managing director of activeIT, commented on this collaboration: “EDITEL is a highly reliable partner for data processing who will efficiently and expertly process any data formats provided by our clients to our full satisfaction.” n active-it.at

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© Hasselblad H6D

© ATP / Tom Bause; Photo by bause.at

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EDI – FROM A COSMETICS PERSPECTIVE How the Tyrol-based cosmetics company CURA uses EDI to manage the significant challenges of the drugstore and cosmetics industry

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he main challenges for CURA in their close collaboration with drug­ store chains are large product ranges, continuously shorter product cycles, fast turnover and relatively short inventory ranges at the stores‘ distribution centers. “This is why the dynamic provision of merchandise with short lead times is key. What you need in order to keep up with this merchandise flow is a swift and straightforward exchange of documents,” said Gerhard Kaiser, Chief Operating Officer and authorized agent of CURA-Marketing GmbH. This is why CURA started looking into EDI at an early stage and has been relying on the services of EDITEL for more than ten years. “What stands out in our collaboration with EDITEL is their high-quality after-sales service

and their staff’s thorough expertise,” explained Gerhard Kaiser. CURA mostly focuses on electronic orders (ORDERS) because, according to Mr. Kaiser, “it allows suppliers to have fast lead times for a large product range that retailers very much expect, and, in some cases, to offer order-picking for specific stores in the first place.”

CURA relies on the EDI integration service by EDITEL as a cloud-based solution, which, according to Christoph Stenech, Senior Sales Consultant at EDITEL, “has the advantage that CURA does not have to take care of any coordination issues involving EDI connections and can instead focus on its core business.”

For CURA, EDI also plays an important role in its international business. “There

is no faster flow of documents between two systems than in EDI transactions,” said Gerhard Kaiser. The company uses EDI for invoice processing with a total of five countries (Austria, Germany, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia) via the payment provider MARKANT. ­According to Mr. Kaiser, “the unique challenges in this context are the differences among supplier countries which all have their specific mapping guidelines and different interfaces.”

In terms of what’s next in EDI, CURA plans to introduce electronic despatch advices (DESADV). “These will help meet the continuously increasing demands for a professional remittance advice management,” explained Mr. Kaiser. n

ABOUT CURA-­ MARKETING GMBH Headquartered in Innsbruck, CURA-Marketing GmbH is an innovative business in the cosmetics and perfume industry with international operations and more than 100 employees.

CURA develops brands, marketing concepts and sales strategies for cosmetic products.

CURA products are sold in 18 countries in discount stores and drugstores. In 2018, the company’s sales were 45 million euro.

IN BRIEF DI allows for a swift and straightforward E document flow with drugstore retailers Implemented message formats:

Orders (ORDERS)

Invoices (INVOIC) DI Integration via EDITEL as an outsourcing E solution I nternational EDI connections in 6 countries via MARKANT igh service level by EDITEL regarding different H mappings and interfaces

curacosmetic.com

PAPERLESS INVOICES AT THE CLICK OF THE MOUSE In order to ensure that electronic invoices ­actually reach their addressees, GS1 Austria ­relies on the PDF e-Invoice service by EDITEL.

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here are many advantages of sending invoices electronically even beyond the to-be-expected business advantages. Electronic invoices also contribute to environmental protection.

This is why GS1 Austria has been sending the majority of its invoices via e-mail for quite some time. Until recently, the invoice was sent to the addressee as a PDF e-mail attachment.

However, this included the risk that invoices might not reach their destination for a variety of reasons, including invalid e-mail addresses, limited storage space of inboxes or a restrictive firewall.

To bypass this risk, GS1 Austria has been using a new service since the beginning of this year, relying on the eXite service by EDITEL. This solution sends invoices as PDF files directly from the ERP system to the eXite portal. Then, an e-mail is sent to the addressee that includes an online link to the invoice. This saves storage space on the client’s side and also offers GS1 a straightforward monitoring tool that allows the company to see when and by whom an invoice has been accessed. “This allows us to proactively manage the invoicing process. In addition, clients no longer have to deal with

IN BRIEF G S1 Austria relies on eXite PDF e-Invoice for sending invoices electronically N o more attachments needed; instead, a direct link sent via e-mail takes clients to the invoice I nvoice traceability S traightforward monitoring and management of the invoicing process A udit-proof archiving N o unnecessary payment reminders to clients E asy implementation

unnecessary payment reminders,” said David Farar, head of finance, accounting and HR, who is very pleased with this solution. The CEO of GS1, Gregor Herzog, is also positive that this “is yet

ABOUT GS1 AUSTRIA GS1 Austria provides a globally unequivocal identification system for locations, articles, shipping units etc. The GS1 system is the basis for the electronic exchange of business data and the standardization of messages and business transactions among companies.

another important step at GS1 Austria towards digitalization, which translates into a high degree of transparency in the invoicing process.” n gs1.at

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or almost 60 years, the name ­ elber has been synonymous with F Viennese baking tradition. To this day, Felber continues to use artisanal baking methods. And yet Felber has a very modern and innovative side, especially when it comes to IT. In ­addition to server and desktop visualizations, Felber has been using Electronic Data Interchange for more than 12 years. Since 2010, the company has been relying on the EDI services provided by EDITEL. Felber exchanges orders (ORDERS), despatch advices (DESADV) and invoices ­ (INVOIC) with both food retailers ­ and restaurants. Felber’s IT director, Michael Eckert, said: “EDI really takes a lot of work off our order service.

It even allows us to process special orders such as a single oversized roll!” To Mr. Eckert, the biggest plus for clients is that “they can use their own software for the order process and aren’t tied to predetermined ordering schedules.”

FELBER SWITCHES TO AN EDI CLOUD SOLUTION When it comes to EDI, the bakery chain Felber puts its trust in EDITEL.

Felber is taking yet another innovative approach by switching from its local (in-house) EDI system to a cloud solution by EDITEL. This translates into several advantages: updates to different customer formats no longer have to be implemented in the local solution and the latest technology is available at all times. Any errors that may occur are handled by the external partner EDITEL. Also, additional ma-

BACKALDRIN TO JUMP ON THE UPSTREAM BANDWAGON backaldrin is yet another company that relies on upstream EDI in its business processes with S. Spitz.

“U

pstream EDI“ means that Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is used early in the upstream process for the flow of raw material and packaging. This goes all the way from orders by retailers to pre-suppliers and back. backaldrin, the inventor of the original kornspitz roll, is another major pre-supplier who has decided to rely on upstream EDI for its collaboration with the beverage and food manu-

IN BRIEF b ackaldrin uses upstream EDI for upstream logistics processes I mplemented message formats:

Orders (ORDERS)

Order responses (ORDRSP)

Despatch advices (DESADV) I mproved data quality without any system inconsistencies S wift and error-free merchandise receipt on the client side Full traceability

facturer S.Spitz. Maximilian Heindl, sales director at backaldrin, explains why: “Our two companies have been doing business together for many ­years and we always strive to evolve as best as we can. This project revolved around leveraging new digital opportunities in the area of procurement and logistics.”

In practice, the process looks like this: after placing an order (ORDER), S. Spitz automatically receives confirmation provided as an order response (ORDRSP). Electronic despatch advices (DESADV) ensure that the route of the merchandise, which are, in the case of backaldrin, high-quality raw materials for baked goods, can be traced without any system inconsistencies. This translates into dramatically increased efficiency, improved data quality and faster processing. Mr. Heindl praised the collaboration with EDITEL for this project: “We saw them as a highly qualified and reliable business partner who would swiftly

IN BRIEF Electronic data interchange with food retailers and restaurants Used message formats: Orders (ORDERS) Despatch advices (DESADV) Invoices (INVOIC) Upcoming: EDI integration (cloud solution by EDITEL) Updates no longer have to be implemented on the local converter Always relies on the latest technology Troubleshooting is handled directly

by EDITEL Easy implementation of additional managed services No need to implement additional EDI software

naged services by EDITEL can easily be implemented, including archiving, validation or monitoring services.

Michael Eckert is very pleased with the EDITEL collaboration: “All I have to do is put the client in contact with EDITEL, we briefly talk about the client’s specific needs and then things just work,” he said. While Felber bakery will continue to make its traditional bread products from scratch, its EDI solutions remain in the trusted hands of EDITEL, especially now that they are in the cloud. n felberbrot.at

IMPRINT ISSUE 1/2019 Owner and publisher: EDITEL Austria GmbH, 1040 Vienna, Brahmsplatz 3; T: +43 (0)1/505 86 02; e-mail: info@editel.at. www.editel.eu

ABOUT ­BACKALDRIN backaldrin International The Kornspitz Company, founded in 1964, develops innovative bread concepts and high-quality customized basic products for the international baking industry. The company’s range of products includes more than 700 high-quality basic products for bread, rolls, and baked goods. backaldrin supports its clients, which include artisanal bakers and industrial businesses alike, with service-oriented solutions rooted in its innovative power and a true passion for bread making.

This family business with international operations has 20 subsidiaries worldwide including seven production facilities. The headquarters are located in Asten (Upper Austria).

provide the solutions we needed. We also gained valuable insight that we will rely on for the needs our clients might have in the future.” n backaldrin.com

EDITEL Austria GmbH is a wholly-owned subsidiary of GS1 Austria GmbH. The corporate objective of EDITEL Austria GmbH is the electronic data exchange between business partners, the sale of the required software and support services.

Management and responsible for the content: Mag. Gerd Marlovits Editorial staff: Sylvia M. Gerber M.A., Anja Jung Proofreading : Dagmar Jenner, www.texterei.com Translations: English: Dagmar Jenner, www.texterei.com Czech and Slovak: Martina Pokorná Hungarian: Renata Stummer Croatian: Nataša Burič, Marija Lunjek Layout: www.creativedirector.cc Disclosure pursuant to Austrian Media Law as amended in March 2009: the purpose of this newsletter is the promotion and support of ­EDITEL Austria‘s business activities.