Innovation and sustainability
LKW Walter celebrating its centennial this year. With more than 8,000 full truck-loads on the road and in combined transport every day, LKW Walter, a subsidiary of Austria’s Walter Group, is one of the leading players in the European transport industry. Now the family business, which began as a one-man forwarding office in Vienna in 1924, is celebrating its anniversary with more than 1,600 employees from 40 countries.
The company initially established its reputation as a specialist for groupage transport. Almost 30 years later the first international transport to Italy followed, which heralded its international growth.
In 1984, LKW Walter started its path to operating in the combined transport segment, which has been a central figurehead of its success ever since. Since the turn of the millennium the company, which runs facilities in Wiener Neudorf and Kufstein, has placed particular emphasis on digital and agile solutions for modern challenges.
On the road for businesses and people
Board member Herbert Traxler told the media that “our success is based on ongoing innovation and a clear commitment to sustainability. LKW
Walter was awarded the Austrian national coat of arms in 1986 for its services to the national economy. We’re very proud as a family transport enterprise to be able to play an important role in the national economy and for the Austrian population.”
People are at the heart of LKW Walter’s business activities, with employees playing a central role in an ongoing transformation process, in which “each and every one of us can make a decisive contribution” – for example by breaking new ground in close cooperation with partners and customers and shaping the future of transport in a sustainable and efficient way.
Combined transport for the future
For more than 40 years LKW Walter has relied on combined transport as a key pillar of its business activities, and it continues to do pioneering work in developing transport solutions that go easier on the environment. By using rail / road and shortsea shipping solutions the company saves approximately 329,000 t of CO2 annually.
LKW Walter’s ‘Corporate Strategy 2030’ aims to continue to increase the company’s transport volumes in combined transport and to steadily reduce the proportion of empty runs. The development of new routes and ongoing investments underline the firm’s commitment to sustainability.
eCMR saves paper
Innovation and digitalisation remain central pillars of the strategy. Recent technological advances include introducing the eCMR electronic consignment note that digitalises the most important document for international overland transport in Europe.
This solution has made the processes in the firm’s work procedures more efficient and replaced around 1.5 million waybills encompassing 6 million pages of paper. Board member Alexander Sobota is convinced that “our expertise in digital transformation is one of the keys to our continued success in the next 100 years.”