Innovative, entrepreneurial, a shrewd business move: his Lordships judgment on Chriss offer of 20% of all Bus Tour sales, Apollos and the agencys. One must assume that this stroke of genius was one of the reasons that got the bright but lugubriously boring Chris into the final. Yet it was a dumb offer, unnecessary and probably counter productive. And watching Chris admit he was talking on the hoof when he was making it, I dont for one minute believe that he actually knew what he was offering. He certainly didnt know the consequences and had made no effort to quantify them. And as far as I can see the old Sugar Lump didnt bother his lordly bum or a minions bum, to do the numbers post hoc to realise what a dumb deal it was.

Why?

Apollo had already refused to meet the industry standard of 35%. All Synergy had to do was accept it and theyd got the deal.

If they had simply accepted 35% commission on agency sales and sold nothing themselves, they would still have won.

This innovative deal removed the incentive of the agency to promote Apollos tour: they were going to get commission even if they chose to do nothing.

On the numbers known; anything Apollo sold themselves above 70% of what Synergy sold, then Chriss deal LOST them profit versus a standard Agency commission 35% of Agency sales.

(Facts Synergy Sold 1,375 gross. Profit 1,100 after commission. Apollo sold 835 all profit).

So as far as I can see LoAS fired perhaps one of the best candidates of this or any series because it took him 11 weeks to see what the rest of us knew almost from the start: the gobsmackingly obvious fact that Stubags was full of shit. Which by the way none of Sugars advisers did say, not on camera anyway: they were alarmingly upbeat about him: a maverick, a dreamer who will give you something none of the others will. Against the theological debate about what do you mean by a licence, led by the Priest of pedantry Bordan Tkackuk, Karen Hardy said she believed Stubags had done everything he said hed done and LoASs guy said he knew his stuff IT wise. So for 10 weeks when it was obvious to us all that the Brand should be fired, Sugar Lump kept him on: and the very week his business cronies gave him good reasons to keep him he fired him.

Lessons there about the Sugar business attitudes: what one might reasonably call the BIG IAM style of management. The basis of the empathy with Stubags is only too easy to see. On the bus tour task Stubags was the project leader; he insisted on making the pitch that screwed the team and the task; he steamrollered through stupid pricing; and he tried to steal Synergy's customers and pitch: yet he was kept on in instead of Liz who outsold him 2 to 1 on that task and thousands to 1 on previous tasks. Sugar Lumps reasons for firing Liz were illogical, based on systematic inaccuracies about her previous performance, and frankly laughably inadequate. That SL should think Stubagss extended grovel, sycophantic suck up was a very good argument to keep him is the comment of someone so used to surrounding himself with obsequieous creeps that he doesnt know boot-licking from confident self defence.

The Tourist Bus episode also gave us from the Hoarses mouth the Sugar philosophy of business. Impatient and dismissive, he couldnt understand why Stella hadnt understood the essence of the task, the business model as he laughably put it: it didnt matter how good the tour was, the objective was to sell the tickets and get the bums on board, so to speak. Extrapolate: it doesnt matter how good the computer, the hifi system etc is, go out and get the sales and the money in the bank. Sounds only too true. This is a cynical, manipulative, at heart deceitful business philosophy: its not a business model, its a rip off. An ethics free zone.

The editing this week, always tendentious and designed not to represent the events of the programme but to promote the format, was mysterious. Interviews were chunked up into Twitter sized bits so we saw just one question and response then on to the next. Apart from being very irritating it gave us only the impression of the candidates the editor wanted to give, not the impression they actually created in their interviews.

And so to the final in December 2010 taking place over a year since it was shot. And we will ostensibly see LoAS make his choice between Chris and Stella: or will we? The BBC is cagey on this. At least one previous winner has confirmed the widespread belief that they shoot two final boardroom scenes where each finalist wins and that Sugar Lump DOESNT decide then, he has both finalists work for him for 6 months and then makes his decision between them. They then air the appropriate final shoot. If actually true and many say it is, then the BBC are offering us a genuinely Sugar inspired product i.e a rip off.

Having watched this stuff for a long time now two things are crystal clear.

If you want to understand true principles of management and business:
1. Do the OPPOSITE of anything Alan Sugar advocates and you wont go far wrong.
2. The biggest risk, the most dangerous consequence that all participants in The Apprentice face for their professionalism, their business understanding and their personal character: is to WIN it.

Apologies again about the eccentric punctuation.

See also zettelfilmreveiws.co.uk

I've watched all the episodes, and have really enjoyed the show, and the characters it throws up. I even warmed to Stuart Baggs in the end - he came accross particularly well on the after show, when he was more than prepared to take the mickey out of himself.

Regarding the Bus Tour episode, there are a couple of points I'm not sure about.

If they had simply accepted 35% commission on agency sales and sold nothing themselves, they would still have won.

That surely depends on how many tickets the agency sold. Do you have those figures?

This innovative deal removed the incentive of the agency to promote Apollos tour

They still got 20% commission on the tours they sold. Unless they were a rougue agency, having done a deal with Appollo, I'm sure they would have promoted the tours like those of any other client. Again, I'd be interested to know how many tickets were sold via the agency.


Regarding the editing of the interviews, that happens on every TV show. I've heard Dragon's Den candidates talk about an hour long pitch which is edited down to a juicy 5 mins. Unless they make the show much longer (and more boring!) then we are only ever going to see the cringe-worthy parts!

Nick

hi nick

we know the profits were respectively £835 and £1,100 (give or take a few pence). We know that £1,100 was net of 20% commission to the agents so we know the total sales for Synergy were £1,375. We know that all of Apollo's sales were made by them.

So even if all the sales for Synergy were made by the agency £1,375 less 35% = £895 so they would have won anyway (though made a little less profit). We don't know what the proportion of Agency to Synergy Sales was but play with a few examples and you will find that although Synergy didn't need Chris's deal to win under any scenario once they sold about 70% of Apollo's sales (£488 - not a very difficult target I wouldn't have thought) they would progressively make more profit under the 35% than the 20% deal.

I agree the agency could still promote the Synergy tour but in camparison to their other tours presumably at the standard rate they have a 15% incentive benefit to put more moeny and energy into those knowing that whatever happened with Synergy's tour they would still get commission.

My point though is that Sugar changes the goalposts of judgment to suit himself and that is his reputation in business. As ever the programme is far more revealing about him than it is about the Apprentices. I think the 'business plan' he outlined is his view and just because a lot of people enjoy the comfortable cynicism that attitude implies it is not the only way to conduct business. Google Sir John Harvey Jones with Alan Sugar and you'll see what at least one of his 'peers' thought about his attitude to business. Also look at the history of his acrimonious deaprture from departure Amstrad etc. One of his 'chums' who conducted interviews last year was presiding over the massive collapse of his own property empire and was 'not available' this year.

As for editing: well yes but even the dragons editing is not deisnged to humiliate people and make them look stupid. For that perhaps we need to go to the X-factor and the unlamented Big Brother.

regards

Z

Hi, thanks for the extra feedback - I'm most impressed by your maths!

Regarding AS, I think he is a product of his background. I should imagine most bussiness peole (in his league) went to good schools etc, while he is a market trader in a suit!

But to be fare, it seems he made it against the odds, I can't help but think if we had a few more with his determination Britain would be a more successful country.

I don't think he would ever win any popularity contests, and I'm certain he knows that!!

With regards to 'firing', I'm certain he looks at the all round abilities of the candidates on the loosing team and sacks the weakest, regardless of who made the mistakes (but then is obliged to justify his decission). I think, in his shoes I'd do the same.

As for Chris and Stuart, I think both have unfortunate presentation skills that perhaps mask what they are good at. Stuart is not too handsome, and a bit chubby which does not help his cause. Chris is obviously super-intelligent, but comes accross as thick and without any charisma. In contrast, Liz presented extreemly well but did she have the other qualities of an entrepreneur?

No matter how it pans out, for my money it's one of the best shows on TV. I'm just sorry Adrien Childs left the after show.

Nick