The story of KOTTAS PHARMA dates back to 1795, when the original “Medicinische Kräuter Handlung”—today’s KOTTAS Kräuterhaus—was founded, laying the cornerstone for what has become a successful family business. To this day, the Kottas family remains deeply rooted in this historic location, carrying forward traditional herbal knowledge and centuries-old expertise in medicinal herbs across nine generations. Today, KOTTAS PHARMA offers more than 600 individual herbs, comprising a broad portfolio that includes herbal teas, fruit teas, black and green teas, spices, incense products, herbal bitters, cosmetics, and many other natural products.
While production of the family business’s herbal products follows long-established traditions, order processing with pharmaceutical wholesalers has moved decisively into the digital age. Since earlier this year, these processes have been managed via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). According to Maximilian Kottas-Heldenberg, who is responsible for Sales, Marketing, and IT at KOTTAS PHARMA, the company was technically “EDI-ready” as far back as 15 years ago, following the implementation of SAP. “The topic really gained momentum during the COVID period,” he explains. “Staff shortages suddenly caused everything to take much longer—and that’s when we realized how much automation could help.”
Flawless results
It was only last year that KOTTAS PHARMA ultimately decided to move forward with the EDI project, turning to EDITEL, “which had been recommended to us multiple times as an EDI service provider,” says Kottas-Heldenberg. To ensure that orders at KOTTAS are exchanged exclusively in electronic form going forward, EDITEL implemented an interface between the company’s SAP ERP system and the eXite® EDI service. This interface converts KOTTAS’s internal order format into the EDIFACT ORDERS message format. The first major customer was successfully connected in spring. The early takeaway from KOTTAS PHARMA: “It works flawlessly, and we save roughly one full working day per week that we previously spent manually entering orders. The speed is also a big advantage for our manufacturing partner, which fills our products—everything is now far more predictable.” Kottas-Heldenberg is equally positive about the collaboration with EDITEL:
“Our contact person is always extremely helpful and patient, explains everything twice if needed, and always thinks one step ahead for us.” Following this first best-practice implementation, he is confident that the next steps—connecting additional wholesalers—“will move forward very quickly.”
