146 INTERVIEW Two decades of resilience After over 20 years in business, Shores Group’s Susan Sadolin reflects on the shocks the furnishing supplier has overcome and the experience that keeps it relevant today Shores Group has been supplying furniture and furnishings to the cruise industry for more than two decades, counting many of the world’s largest cruise lines among its long-standing customers. Over that time, Susan Sadolin, the company’s founder and CEO, has seen the industry through both its biggest booms and most challenging periods. Keeping afloat despite the turbulence throughout the years has required hard work. “Cruise is a very loyal industry, but it’s also a very demanding industry,” she says. “You have to be constantly alert. It never stops.” Having pioneered International Maritime Organization-compliant outdoor furniture in the early 2000s, Sadolin rebuilt the company after a series of claims from customers amidst the financial crisis of 2008. By working hands-on and travelling to ships to resolve claims herself, she restored the company’s standing in the cruise industry. Meanwhile, a subsidiary introduced the same high-quality, cruiseinspired designs to the hotel sector. By the late 2010s, the dual focus had paid off, and Shores planned a major expansion of its operations. “Up to 2019, the business was really booming,” says Sadolin. “We spent three years planning a move to a big newbuild location in Miami. It was ready on 1 January 2020, and we’d invested a lot of money in it. We felt very comfortable, coming off two really strong years.” Just two months later, the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the entire cruise industry overnight. “For nearly two years there was almost no cruise business,” says Sadolin. “Our warehouse was full of orders cruise lines wanted to cancel, so we had to negotiate to store the goods until they could be delivered.” What carried the company through the pandemic was the hotel side it had carefully developed years beforehand. Hotels, Sadolin notes, were not accustomed to the durability and highquality finishes demanded by cruise lines, and the difference in materials and construction proved to be a differentiator for Shores. “What actually saved us in 2020 and 2021 was our hotel business,” she says. “ Today there are hundreds of IMO materials available, and designers can create almost anything they imagine”
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQ1NTk=