Gebrüder Weiss: an Austrian family business with geographical expansion along the Silk Road

By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-9-29 14:00

The international transport and logistics company Gebrüder Weiss (GW) is famous in Europe. In its home country of Austria, just about everyone knows the distinctive orange trucks with the white lettering. Until the fall of the Iron Curtain, the logistics company focused mostly on freight forwarding in Austria, Switzerland and (southern) Germany. After 1989, the pace of internationalization within the company picked up considerably. Gebrüder Weiss expanded progressively (south)eastwards to the Black Sea and at the same time became active in China, opening its first office there in Shanghai in 1992. At present, Gebrüder Weiss has a total of 19 of its own locations at all strategically critical logistics hubs throughout China.

Pioneer in the logistics industry

Closing the existing gap in the land transport network between Eastern Europe and Asia was just a logical consequence for Gebrüder Weiss as a full service logistics provider, especially as it recognized the potential of the economically emerging countries along the Silk Road at an early stage. "We started expanding our network in the countries bordering the Silk Road with our own branches and offices as early as 2005, long before the Belt and Road Initiative, making us one of the pioneers in the industry. After starting off in Ukraine, the company went on to enter the market in Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia and most recently Uzbekistan in 2019, meaning that we have completed our geographical expansion along the Silk Road as planned. We are now concentrating on developing these locations accordingly," says Dieter Buchinger, Silk Road Area Manager at Gebrüder Weiss. Then he says that it is not just a matter of establishing and conducting bilateral business within the Group's own network, but also and in particular on developing sustainable transports and product solutions that contribute to a smooth flow of goods along the entire Silk Road, as well as between the individual markets within the region.

Rail transports in high demand

It is within this context that rail transport plays a vital role for Gebrüder Weiss. The time-saving land rail route (compared with shipping) is used in particular by the automotive and textile industries and electronics and agricultural technology manufacturers. "Customized door-to-door transport solutions that are both fast and cost-efficient are very popular with our customers. The railway is a real alternative along the trans-Eurasian corridor, being ideal for all Eastern and Central European destinations without a direct port connection as well as for export regions in China that are located inland," Buchinger explains. Gebrüder Weiss is represented on all important connections from China to Europe and vice versa with its core carrier program, enabling it to provide several departures each way every week. Pre- and on-carriage activities are carried out by truck via the system network of the Gebrüder Weiss organization.

GW East Plus competence center

Gebrüder Weiss has been using a special competence centre called GW East Plus to deal with intermodal transports via the Trans-Eurasia Express since 2016, working closely together with colleagues from GW Beijing. "The number of rail transports has steadily increased over the years. Pioneered by large electronics and automobile manufacturers, who began to switch parts of their production and logistics to rail at a very early stage. But it is also the industrialization of China's hinterland, away from the booming hubs of activity along the East Coast, that has fueled this development. This has enabled us to broaden our product range and offer LCL (less than container load) solutions for various destinations in addition to FCL (full container load). The coronavirus pandemic and the associated capacity bottlenecks in sea and air freight since 2020 have further increased demand, meaning that we are now experiencing a real and unabated boom in rail transport," Buchinger says. At present, Gebrüder Weiss sends its customers' goods west from Chongqing, Zhengzhou and Chengdu four times a week. Other shipping destinations include Xi'an, Wuhan, Yiwu and Hefei.

Paper rolls and cotton harvesters

Traveling the other direction, namely from west to east, the Silk Road experts at Gebrüder Weiss have already handled many demanding intermodal transports. The major advantage here is that all Gebrüder Weiss locations were equipped with their own rail connection, even in places where the regional railway network was not sufficiently developed at the very beginning, such as in Georgia. Having such a connection made it possible, for instance, to transport some 50 tons of paper rolls from Tbilisi by rail through Armenia and then by ferry across the Caspian Sea to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Cotton harvesters from the USA have also been delivered to Uzbekistan. The huge machines were first shipped from Baltimore in the USA to Zeebrugge in Belgium, where they were loaded onto trucks bound for Estonia. Before being transported onward by rail via Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan, the sheer size of the machines meant they had to be completely dismantled and then reassembled at their destination in Tashkent. "When it comes to complex orders such as these, we benefit both from our global network that has uniform logistics standards across the board, and from the experts from GW East Plus who stand out with their in-depth knowledge of customs issues, regional peculiarities, language skills, and so on," says Buchinger.

Substantial opportunity for growth in the medium term

The Silk Road is and remains an interesting growth market for Gebrüder Weiss, even if individual regions have not developed as quickly as had been initially assumed due to a range of various factors. "The various infrastructure measures – including work to expand the use of rail transport – will only improve the attractiveness of this economic area further. We see substantial opportunity for growth in the medium term," says Buchinger. Until then, the company believes it is in a good position with its modern logistics hubs in Moscow, Tbilisi (Georgia) and Almaty (Kazakhstan) to deal with distribution to neighboring countries along with the flow of goods between Europe and China in a quick, safe and efficient way. "I hope that in a few years we will see a thriving logistics market along the Silk Road and that it will regain a role that is just as vital as the one it had many centuries ago."

Gebrüder Weiss in China

Since its market entry in 1992, Gebrüder Weiss has been focusing mostly on its role as a freight forwarder in the Air & Sea sector and land transportation. Recently, the company has invested heavily in other sectors such as warehousing, the introduction of an e-commerce parcel service and logistics consulting. Today, the Austrian company runs 19 locations and 13 multi-usage warehouses in the key transport hubs of China, with headquarters in Shanghai. With offices in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zanjiang and Hong Kong, Gebrüder Weiss is well established in the Pearl River Delta, an economic powerhouse of China.

In the coming years, the logistics expert intends to expand the storage area significantly. With the new Joint Venture GW Express China, Gebrüder Weiss China has successfully positioned itself as a leading e-commerce specialist between China and Central and Eastern Europe. In addition to that, the Silk Road pioneer has continued to expand its locations and services along the Silk Road, providing a wide range of transport solutions and services.

The history of Gebrüder Weiss

The roots of Gebrüder Weiss can be traced back more than 500 years, making the logistics company probably the oldest transport company in the world. The company's history begins in the late Middle Ages with a transalpine courier line to northern Italy (Milan). At that time, money, letters and important commodities like silk were transported by horseback along a difficult route. Even passengers were sometimes taken, the most prominent of which was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1788.

The company has been run under the name "Gebrüder Weiss" since 1823 and remains in family ownership today. With about 7,400 employees, 170 company-owned locations, an annual turnover of 1.77 billion euros (2020), Gebrüder Weiss is a leading, globally active transport and logistics company and Silk Road pioneer. In addition to its core business of land transport, air & sea freight, and logistics, the company operates highly specialized industry solutions and subsidiaries under the umbrella of Gebrüder Weiss Holding AG, based in Lauterach (Austria).

This article is reprinted from China Daily.

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