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Andy Taylor reflects on 10 years at Expect Distribution

316 million seconds, 5.26 million minutes, 87,648 hours… and about 12.25% of the average person’s life expectancy.  It’s safe to say that ten years is a long time… especially working in Transport where a bad ten minutes can feel like ten years!  In all seriousness it’s a great milestone which I’m really proud of and we thought it would be good to look back on where the business was, what’s happened over the last decade and  what I am and we are hoping for in the years ahead of us…

When I first got to know of the opportunity to join Expect in the Summer of July 2015, my Wife and I had had our eldest Daughter at the start of 2015 and I had got pretty fed up of living out of a suitcase – my previous role entailed travelling across the UK and into Europe.  When I first met Neil, and then Bob and Steve also,  I got a really good feeling about them and the business during the interview process.  At the time it felt like the business had outgrown itself and had had some challenges, including closing down the two-man operation and saying farewell to it’s previous Operations Director earlier in 2015.   Between me agreeing to join the business and me starting, the Operations Manager who looked after General Distribution and the Head of Contract Logistics had both elected to leave the business… which made for an interesting start to life at Expect!

All that said, once I joined it was about cracking on with overcoming the challenges which we did… slowly but surely.  One of my warmest memories was Bob Rushworth telling me “it’s a Marathon not a Sprint, there’s lots to do but just concentrate on delivering one thing at a time but do it right” – sound advice and a phrase I still use with new colleagues joining the business to this day.

At the time I joined the business in 2015, turnover was £21m with around 14000 pallet spaces in the Warehousing Division and 15 vehicles in the Contract Logistics Division.  Fast forward to today, turnover is around £80m, we have around 65000 pallet spaces in the Warehousing Division and 50 vehicles in the Contract Logistics Division… and we’ve won plenty of Awards including Motor Transport Awards Haulier of the Year twice! That said, we certainly don’t see it as ‘job done’ – in fact quite the opposite, we believe we are still only getting started and have much more opportunity in front of us looking to the future…  However, it’s not all about the numbers and not all about me – the success of the business has been about the great people we are fortunate to have in the business today and those in the past that have also been part of the journey.

There are plenty of funny stories over the last ten years that I’ll save for discussing over a coffee or a beer… but again those funny stories are thanks to the fantastic people we’ve had in the business.

During the journey there have been plenty of challenges (to put it mildly!) and there have been plenty of things I’ve and we’ve got wrong along the way.   However I’ve always cared more than anything about doing what is right for the business and have always tried to do what I believed was the right thing at every moment… and I’m not sure that anyone can do any more than that.

In late 2021, myself and Matt completed the Management Buy Out of the business.  It had been many years in the making and not fully straightforward.  However I often say that once we had started down the path, it was the only possible outcome and ultimately the right outcome for everyone involved with the business then, now and in the future. 

Looking to the future, the only thing certain is that the future is going to be uncertain.  The world is changing at an ever-faster pace and I’m not sure anyone can  say exactly what the world will look like in another ten years’ time.  In particular, Artificial Intelligence, Climate change and Global economic challenges will shape how the future looks for us… although we don’t know how yet!  These factors are predictable but what we saw Covid-19 come out of nowhere in 2020/21 to transform the world almost overnight.  However, we all as people and Expect Distribution as a business responded quickly and showed enormous resilience to adapt, adjust and ultimately overcome the challenges and move forward.  As such, I am as confident as I can be that we will prevail whatever the future holds for us.   

Thank you in closing to everyone that has contributed so much to the business yesterday, today and tomorrow and here is to the next ten years ahead of us… Onwards!

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