CEO Liam McElroy reflects on 18 months of structural groundwork and reveals how the logistics group’s new unified strategy will simplify customer engagement, strengthen financial discipline and unlock the full potential of its end-to-end UK capability.
When I last spoke to Motor Transport, I was just three months into my role as CEO of Culina Group. More than a year on, I can now reflect on a period of significant groundwork and look ahead to creating a new chapter that is already beginning to take shape across the business.
From the outset, the focus has been on three priorities: simplification, integration and unlocking the right opportunities to enable organic growth. I can say those principles have not only proven right but now underpin a clear strategic direction for Culina Group as we look towards 2027 and beyond.
As part of that plan, Culina Group and its subsidiary brands will undergo significant changes from this autumn. The objective is straightforward: simplify how we operate, improve performance, support organic growth and ultimately deliver a better experience for customers, all while strengthening the long-term resilience of the business.
At the heart of this is a ‘One Culina’ approach.
This will give customers one front door to Culina’s services and subsidiary brands, creating a clearer, simpler and more unified organisation. Our service and value proposition will be easier for the market to understand.
We knew something needed to evolve.
One of the biggest learnings from the past year has been recognising just how much of Culina Group’s capability was not fully understood, both externally and internally, and how important it was to address that.
Despite offering end-to-end capability across UK transport, warehousing, co-packing and specialist logistics, the Group’s full proposition is not always clear to customers. Internally, the picture could also feel fragmented, an understandable consequence of a business that has grown more than tenfold over the past decade and now operates across multiple specialist businesses.
It became obvious that while we had the capability, we weren’t articulating it consistently. “Customers didn’t always understand the full breadth of what we could do for them, across the spectrum of our business.
Over the past year, the focus has therefore been on creating clarity: simplifying how the Group operates, improving alignment across the business and putting in place a framework that brings the organisation closer together while continuing to value deep specialist expertise, this is now underpinned with a clear 3-year strategy.
Alongside this, the Group’s fundamentals have been strengthened through better data, improved planning, stronger financial discipline and a more targeted approach to automation, sustainability and continuous improvement.
This allows us to properly understand how the business is performing. And when you truly understand the business, you can improve it.
How will customers benefit from the changes?
The ‘One Culina’ approach will give customers access to an integrated, UK-wide network that is sustainable, scalable and built for long-term success.
Customers will no longer need to engage with Culina Group on a brand-by-brand basis. Instead, they will be guided by the services they need while working with a single, integrated business.
Alongside simplification, strengthening existing customer relationships remains central to the strategy, alongside building new partnerships with businesses that share Culina Group’s values and ambitions for sustainable growth.
This is about strengthening our relationships with customers who value long-term partnerships and want to grow with us. Our ambition is to work with like-minded customers with whom we share similar values, support sustainable and profitable growth, and unlock long-term opportunities across the business.
That means getting closer to customers, simplifying how they engage with us to unlock value and making it clear why we are the right partner.
The changes are also about creating a stronger and more resilient Culina Group, one that is better equipped to support customers over the long term.
By simplifying how we operate and bringing the business closer together, we’re building a more resilient organisation. That puts us in a stronger position to invest, innovate and consistently deliver for our customers, now and in the future.
With the foundations now firmly in place, the focus is on translating that clarity into long-term impact.
We’ve always had strong capability, what’s changed is the clarity. The focus now is on expressing that more simply, setting the business up for the long term and creating a more straightforward, joined-up experience for customers.
Liam McElroy, CEO, Culina Group
