To visualize three million tons of grain, imagine lining up millions of 500-gram loaves of bread — enough to circle the globe 37 times.
That is approximately the amount processed annually in the 24 mills operated by the GoodMills Group, the leading milling company in Central and Eastern Europe.
As part of Austria’s Raiffeisen Group, GoodMills combines the strengths of an international network with deep local expertise in its individual European markets. This blend of expertise, experience, and regional roots enables the company to capitalize on opportunities in each market. Continuous technological development is a key part of that strategy, ensuring ongoing improvements to internal processes across countries. In recent years, for example, the company-wide rollout of SAP was accompanied by a complete restructuring of EDI operations in four countries, implemented with the support of EDITEL.
“Best practice” Bulgaria
In 2021, Bulgaria became the first country where, alongside the SAP implementation and during ongoing operations, the entire Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) setup was successfully migrated and relaunched with EDITEL’s support. Because the new centralized system landscape was incompatible with the previous local EDI service provider, GoodMills selected EDITEL as a partner with the necessary experience, expertise, and international presence. With a clearly defined objective and a strict go-live deadline, SAP was introduced in parallel with daily business operations. Internal interfaces were defined, and the required EDI mappings were prepared and tested with customers. Ultimately, the new system went live precisely on schedule — without disrupting ongoing business operations.
Building connections
Following this “best practice” example, the modernization of EDI operations was expanded to additional countries. In 2023, the rollout was completed in Hungary, followed by Germany and Austria in 2024, resulting in the implementation of more than 100 business relationships. Despite this considerable number, the internal effort required by GoodMills remained manageable, according to Christian Schmidt, SAP Application Manager SD/LE: “EDITEL handled everything for us, allowing us to focus entirely on our internal priorities throughout the project.” One particularly helpful advantage, Schmidt explains, was that “EDITEL already had established connections with nearly all major retail customers in each of the respective countries.”
All’s well that ends well
Following the successful rollout in four countries, Christian Schmidt reflects positively on the results:
“After a challenging project phase, our EDI operations are now running smoothly, and we were able to go live simultaneously in all countries with all customers. And if a rare support case arises, EDITEL is always available promptly and with a solution-oriented approach.” In addition to potential future SAP rollouts in other countries — though not in the immediate future — GoodMills is currently focused on gradually connecting additional customers via EDI. “In other words,” Schmidt says with a smile, “we certainly won’t be running out of things to do.”
One thing is certain: the mills will continue turning — in EDI as well.
