35 years ago, Drees & Sommer opened its first office in Vienna. Today, the company has around 150 employees across six locations in Austria and supports clients with consulting, design, project management and construction management services throughout the entire lifecycle of real estate and infrastructure projects. To mark the anniversary, Drees & Sommer Austria celebrated with clients, partners and long-standing companions at an event in Vienna yesterday, reflecting on the company’s journey while also looking ahead to the challenges and opportunities of the coming decades.
When Drees & Sommer opened its first office in Vienna in 1991, the construction and real estate industry looked fundamentally different. Building plans were still corrected with razor blades, decisions were communicated by fax, and project data was stored in rows of filing cabinets stretching for metres. Today, digital twins, Building Information Modeling (BIM), real-time data and artificial intelligence are shaping the design and management of complex construction and infrastructure projects.
“Drees & Sommer’s DNA is about identifying change at an early stage and actively driving it forward,” explains Marc Schömbs, Executive Board Member of Drees & Sommer SE. This mindset has shaped the company since it was founded by Gerhard Drees and Hans Sommer in Stuttgart in 1970. From an early stage, the company focused on energy efficiency and resource conservation, and later on sustainability – long before these topics moved into the public spotlight. Digitalisation was also recognised early on as an opportunity and consistently advanced.
For Schömbs, the expansion into Austria was also an expression of this approach: “Austria was one of the first steps in our international development and has grown into a particularly important market, a hub for innovation and a gateway to Central and Eastern Europe.”
From a Vienna Office to a Nationwide Network
“A decisive step in our development was the transformation from a company primarily focused on Vienna into a consulting, design and project management partner operating throughout Austria,” says Gerald Herndlhofer, Chairman of the Managing Board of Drees & Sommer Austria. By expanding its service portfolio and strengthening its general design and construction management capabilities, the company evolved into a partner supporting real estate and infrastructure projects throughout their entire lifecycle. Today, in addition to Vienna, Drees & Sommer Austria has offices in Linz, Salzburg, Klagenfurt, Innsbruck and Dornbirn.
Looking ahead, Herndlhofer sees several major transformation challenges for the coming years. These include the modernisation of healthcare and educational facilities, the energy transition, and the expansion of sustainable mobility and infrastructure projects. “We have tremendous expertise in Austria in all of these areas. The key will be to make the best possible use of this expertise, connect it effectively and deliver projects faster, more sustainably and more economically.”
Austria’s regions will also continue to grow in importance. “I see enormous opportunities in western and southern Austria. These regions are home to strong companies, exciting projects and a high level of innovation,” explains Nicole Rumpler, Managing Director of Drees & Sommer Austria. Combining strong regional roots with the international expertise of more than 6,500 employees across the Drees & Sommer Group is a key factor in this success.
Growth
For Georg Stadlhofer, Managing Director of Drees & Sommer Austria, the company’s development in recent years is above all the result of a strong corporate culture and the trust of long-standing clients. “We have continuously expanded our service portfolio – from traditional project management to design and construction management, sustainability, digitalisation and integrated project delivery. At the same time, we have established ourselves as a trusted partner to Austria’s construction, real estate and infrastructure sectors.”
For Stadlhofer, the people behind this growth are particularly important: “Our success is built on colleagues who take responsibility, share their knowledge and work together with our clients to develop solutions. This trust is the foundation of our development.”
35 years after entering the Austrian market, Drees & Sommer is therefore not only looking back on a successful journey, but above all looking ahead. The ambition remains the same as it was in 1991: to identify change early, drive innovation forward and actively shape the future of the construction, real estate and infrastructure sectors.
Drees & Sommer: Uniting opposites to create a world we want to live in.
Drees & Sommer SE is a partner-led consulting company that develops and implements sustainable, innovative and economically viable solutions for the Real Estate, Infrastructure and Industry markets – or provides clients with both consulting and implementation services from a single source. Founded in 1970 and recognised ever since as a pioneer in sustainability and a driver of digitalisation, the international company employs more than 6,500 people at over 80 locations worldwide. Drees & Sommer has been present in Austria since 1991, with around 150 employees across its offices in Vienna, Linz, Salzburg, Klagenfurt, Innsbruck and Dornbirn. Interdisciplinary teams work on around 7,000 projects worldwide to create a future worth living and unite apparent opposites: tradition and the future, economy and ecology, analogue and digital, efficiency and well-being. The company’s personally accountable partners embody its principle of entrepreneurship within the organisation.