The story behind Jardine's award-winning GM of the Year, Adam McCullagh

In his time leading the business Adam McCullagh, Jardine Motors Jaguar Land Rover (Wolverhampton) head of business, has created a desirable destination for people to work, allowing profits and performance to naturally follow.

The strength of his submission for the Dealer Principal/General Manager of the Year category at the 2024 AM Awards led the judges to select him as winner out of a trio of finalists.

McCullagh leads a team of 82, which have taken the business from the bottom quartile for ‘most key performance indicators’, including customer satisfaction, to now being an upper quartile business, with the site increasing its turnover by 35% in the past two years.

The dealership was one of the leading businesses in the Jardine Motors Group last year, returning a healthy profit in 2023 and contributing an estimated 2% of the group’s profit performance for the year.

JLR (Wolverhampton) has a ‘people first’ culture that is an essential part of delivering first class customer satisfaction.

This link between people at the dealership and excellent service is driven by communication between team members and its customers. There are no silos here, with all departments clearly communicating with each other for the benefit of the wider business.

Every manager is empowered to run their team with the freedom to operate independently and focus on their own area of expertise.

Any issues are recognised not as the problem for a single department, but as a challenge for the entire dealership.

The judges agreed that McCullagh has taken a group of individuals and supported them to become the passionate team they are today.

Staff retention has been a key focus and turnover has been reduced from 18% to 10%.

Reward and recognition has been key to team cohesion. Every achievement is celebrated throughout the dealership, across the group, through Jardine’s intranet and on social media channels.

Every work anniversary, positive customer service index (CSI) return, new baby, retiring team member and charity activity is turned into an occasion.

Making these positive experiences visible and sharing them with the world has had a halo effect on the entire dealership team.

This positive outlook and approach, led by McCullagh, has been a key lever in attracting and retaining good people, reducing recruitment costs and ultimately earning the dealership more than six figures in manufacturer CSI bonuses.

Highly commended: Malcolm Beattie, MB Motors

Finalists:

• Malcolm Beattie, MB Motors
• Muhammad Yousaf, Motoroo
• Adam McCullagh, Jardine JLR Wolverhampton