ILG ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
its benefits:“ A few of our brands needed a solution to be able to distribute their products in Europe and we initially opened a facility in Poland following Brexit. As we are part of a global logistics company called Yusen Logistics, we conducted an analysis of all their operating companies within Europe to establish the best place for ILG to open new facilities.
“ We looked at all the common places, including The Netherlands, Germany, and France, but we also included several central Eastern Europe destinations like the Czech Republic and Poland. Poland came out on top for a variety of reasons. Firstly, because of its proximity to Germany, which is such a key e-commerce and B2B market, but also because of its cost and availability of labor, and cost of facilities. These were all really important factors for our customers. We began operations there in 2020 and just recently moved into a much larger purposebuilt facility in 2024. This gives us significant expansion capability in the European region.”
There are also plans for further expansions beyond European operations, which Tom goes on to detail:“ While we already have substantial business in the US that we are satisfying from our UK and European hubs, as part of our strategic roadmap we want to be able to have our own facilities in the States. We are actively exploring expansion opportunities there, either through partnership or acquisition. Given that the situation in the US is fairly dynamic at the moment the need for us to be able to provide a solution that gives our brands a local capability is really important.”
Acquisitions represent a significant element of this strategy. In February last year, for example, the company acquired GFS Logistics to further enhance its capabilities. Tom highlights some of the key advantages:“ GFS can be described as technologyenabled logistics. We bought the business to significantly increase our footprint and purchasing power in the carrier space. They also, though, have fantastic in-house
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