Tonight it’s back, a new selection of the cream of British business talent – probably with a few more Big Brother rejects thrown into the mix – are taking on the challenge of the Apprentice. BBC Breakfast gave us a bit of a preview, with Sir Alan saying that he’s not totally happy with the editing, and snippets of some of this years contestants. The two that stood out were someone who got a first class law degree, a distinction in his masters, and says he’s always a winner, and a woman who proclaims herself the best saleswoman in Europe – at least one of them will discover that they’re wrong. Sugar thinks this is the best year ever, so we have an enjoyable series of Wednesday nights to look forward to it seems.
Category Archives: The Apprentice
Sport Relief Does The Apprentice
It looks like the BBC have decided that a celebrity special of The Apprentice for charity is a good prelude to the series, as well as being a good money-spinner for the charities. In much the same way as the Comic Relief special last year, this years Sports Relief included a celebrity version of The Apprentice, following much the same format.
This time around the two teams of five celebrities, again split men and women, were given adjacent retail space in which they had to set up shops, invite guests, and make as much money as possible for the charity in a one-night-only sale at the shops. On paper, the women had by far the stronger team with two people with business experience – Jacqueline Gold, CEO of Ann Summers and Kirstie Allsopp, who alongside her TV work has been part of several property companies. On the other side, perhaps the only person with any business experience was Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun. Of course, as regular viewers will know, it’s not always the team with the strongest individuals or the relevant experience that does well.
One strong similarity between this and the previous Comic Relief special was how clearly it showed that the kind of person who becomes famous is more often than not really bad at working in a team. The men especially fell out fairly spectacularly, and effectively wasted the whole of the first day arguing after Kelvin MacKenzie refused to lead (he later stated that he thought his abrasive management style would be detrimental to the group) and Hardeep Singh Kohli put himself forward and then resigned after Kelvin MacKenzie made a pretty poor taste joke comparing his management style to Adolf Hitler. Following on from that, MP Lembit Öpik stepped in. It wasn’t all sweetness and light on the other team either. Jacqueline Gold was quickly appointed as leader due to her relevant experience, however her management style caused problems, especially for Kirstie Allsopp who objected to being micro-managed by Jacqueline. At one point she referred to Jacqueline as a control freak, and at another point just stormed out of the meeting.
The other big similarity this time around was the importance of contacts. The task effectively had two money making opportunities, the first being the sale of tickets, and the second being the selling of goods. The men lost out significantly to the women with regards to ticket sales by firstly failing to sell all their tickets, when the women sold them all, and also by not selling their tickets for as much money. The big star in ticket sales this time around was footballers wife and former singer Louise Redknapp who managed to sell several tickets at vastly inflated prices – including three to one contact for £100,000. The women also did well on their choice of merchandise, managing to get a good selection of quality items, including some notable support from Harrods. The men weren’t without support either. Although their merchandise wasn’t as upmarket as the other team, they did have a valuable contact in Bernie Ecclestone, the billionaire in charge of Formula One who generously offered to match all of their sales.
When it came to the boardroom, it was these contacts that became the key, whilst in terms of ticket sales the women were the clear winners, the effect of Bernie Ecclestone meant that the sales figures were a much closer affair – however in the final totalling up, it was the ticket sales that won it, and the women won the day.
In the board room, it was clear that Alan Sugar had some people he blamed for the loss. First up he gave Kelvin MacKenzie a real hard time for not stepping up to the mark as leader, but ultimately it was Hardeep Singh Kohli who got the boot – both for his destabilising effect on the group, and also because he took responsibility for the shop – including arguing with the rest of the team over the logo, and also for not charging for food – something the women did and made money on.
Of course being fired from the celebrity show doesn’t really mean anything, as there isn’t a next episode, and no big job at the end, so certainly there isn’t the tension. Certainly various of the celebrities treat it as a bit of a laugh. Having said that, it still is an entertaining curtain raiser to the new series, and in terms of the charity, it raised over £700,000 for Sports Relief.
If you missed any of the show, the sixty minute first episode, the boardroom show and the final episode where Hardeep gets fired are all still available on iPlayer.
Send in the Dancing Girls
In a choice which I’m sure surprised a lot of people, Sir Alan Sugar has named Simon Ambrose as the winner of series 3 of The Apprentice. Having described him two weeks ago as Teflon Simon, it was a result I was half expecting – from the fact that Sir Alan let him off back then strongly implied that he was one of the favoured candidates.
Even as he was making the decision it was clear he could see the relative merits of each candidate. He clearly recognised that Kristina was experienced, in fact pretty well what Sir Alan said he was looking for four weeks ago when he fired Ghazal. He even commented in the final boardroom that he was wondering whether he wanted to be the headmaster again. He disagreed with Simon’s assertion that he was a good leader, and yet in the end he decided to take the risk.
To be frank, even during the final task, Simon didn’t look like a winner. As in previous years the two finalists got a selection of the fired candidates to choose from. He ended up with a mixed bag with some volatile combinations. Alongside Tre he got Rory – fired in week 2 after spending the bulk of the task fighting with Tre, and Jadine who also proved to be volatile at times, rounding the group off was Lohit. Kristina’s team also had problems on paper in that alongside Naomi and Natalie had Paul with whom she had had a run in back in week 6, and Adam who went in week 7 and seemed to have issues with various of the other candidates.
The difference in what happened was marked. Whilst Tre and Rory were kicking off, and Rory was giving people no doubt that he was there to prove that he shouldn’t have been fired in week 2, over with Kristina although Adam was getting grumpy, Kristina kept him under control. Paul was being pragmatic and professional about the whole thing too. Kristina divided the team and allocated out tasks, whilst Simon and Tre went off leaving the rest of the team at a loss for what to do.
The main point of the task was to come up with a conceptual design for a building to replace the IBM Building on the South Bank in London. Both teams were given a firm of architects to work with their ideas, and both produced eye catching and radical designs. Both teams then had to present their concepts to an audience of property experts, and put on a presentation. This proved to be the biggest source of arguments between Rory and Tre as for some bizarre reason Rory decided that dancing girls would be a good addition. Quite why I don’t know, and I think the reason escaped the rest of the team too, but dancing girls they had. I have to say that when he came up with that I was rather disappointed that Rory got the push so early, as this particular wacky idea added to the entertainment tonight.
By the end of the task, having seen the presentations, Kristina seemed to have managed her team best, delivered a professional presentation and held it all together, whilst Simon’s team had come up with a presentation almost in spite of themselves. Based on the editing of the programme, even the directors thought Kristina had it all sewn up. Then he gives it to Simon…
On You’re Fired Kristina looked visibly upset, as did her son in the audience. Indeed some in the audience gave her a standing ovation when she came on, and the Telegraph and Mail report that some of the other candidates wanted to walk out in protest at the decision. Despite being shown the selection of Katie snipes from the series she declined to retaliate with any comments back, rising above the backbiting as she had throughout the entire series. Sir Alan was asked directly about Katie on the programme, and fell very much into line with what Michelle Mone had said, saying that having seen what she had said over the series he wouldn’t employ her, nor would anybody else. He then said that Katie had the skills to do the job and that she didn’t need to do what she had done for the attention – but then it was all about Project Katie for her.
Anyway, Simon as winner still looked shocked to have won. Of all the candidates, he was probably the ultimate Sir Alan fan – and this is most definitely living his dream.
Perhaps on reflection this was the best resolution for both of them. In terms of the on screen action, Simon will probably be best remembered for the infamous trampoline scene – perhaps not the best thing to take to a potential employer. On the other hand look at Kristina who has consistently proved that she is a safe pair of hands to take on a task – I’d be surprised if there aren’t even now a queue of top companies eager to snap up her up. Even if Sir Alan decided that he wanted Simon for the final job, for us like many of the viewers, Kristina was the one who truly won the competition, and proved herself to be the best of the candidates.
Katie Gets Fired (For Real)
Katie Hopkins has certainly been the focus of much of the press attention during the third series of the Apprentice. Having had by far the most press attention before her exit, it has only increased now she has gone, thanks to the fact that she avoided being fired. (Although if you watched the special programme on Sunday, Sir Alan has said he would have fired her anyway.) After her departure she sold her story to the News of the World, using the opportunity to hit back at Michelle Mone who verbally blasted her on You’re Fired, and including a expose of her love life which includes her ex-boss who she mentioned last week (the eight out of ten for ruthlessness), and an affair with a colleague at the Met Office pictures of which turned up in the papers right on time to boost her profile. Certainly there is a strong impression that this is all part of some grand project to carve out a media career for herself – Project Katie.
However, today comes news that perhaps Project Katie is maybe running into problems, with the Met Office where she has worked since September 2006 confirming that she has been fired. Apparently her conduct on the show wasn’t the reason she was fired, but it was an aspect of her review. Starting in the job she was given a years probationary period – the Met Office have chosen to terminate her employment before that period is up. Interestingly they also denied that she was earning £90,000 working for them – so quite where that oft quoted figure came from I don’t know.
So will being fired in real life de-rail Project Katie? I doubt it – she apparently has clocked up £40,000 from the sale of her story, so it will probably give her even more time to work on building her media career…
An Answer from Sir Alan
Earlier in the week, when I blogged about Katie’s departure from The Apprentice I posed the question as to whether, if Katie hadn’t have withdrawn, he would have sacked her. At the time I thought we probably wouldn’t have got an answer, but tonight, in a special programme Sir Alan reviewed his reasons for despatching each candidate, and confirmed that had she not gone, he would have fired her anyway despite having said that she was through to the final earlier on.
The impression you got from his comments about Katie was that firstly he didn’t have an issue with her being ruthless as long as she could do the job. However he also said that he had concerns about her reasons for being in the programme, but it seemed was allowing himself to be convinced by her because of his belief that she was suitable. He fully admitted that it could have been one of his biggest mistakes had she got through.
Much of the rest of the programme covered old ground in terms of his reasons for removing certain people, although there was some interesting expansion of his reasons, and indeed he was surprisingly complimentary about some of the fired candidates. Some candidates though he was not. He said that by far the most deserved firing of the entire series was Paul for the infamous French trip. He again said that he expected a lot more from Paul thanks to his Sandhurst training, which I found interesting as he does seem to regard it as a plus. (Bear in mind that Katie also has a Sandhurst training.) From my experience of having worked with ex-military people, having been trained by the army doesn’t make you good in a corporate environment, nor does it make you bad. The two environments are different. Certainly whilst there are obviously skills that are beneficial, you can’t run a team of business staff as you would an army unit, what you are looking for is someone with the adaptability to take those skills that are relevant and use them, but equally you could find that from a multitude of other sources. Sandhurst is there to produce good officers for the army, nothing more.
The other interesting moment in the programme was the discussion about Naomi who many, including myself thought was unfairly dismissed when it was obvious that Simon had messed up completely. From Sir Alan’s comments tonight, it seems pretty clear that whatever had happened on the task, Naomi would have gone, and based on his swift exit the next week I expect Lohit would have gone had the other team lost – it clearly wasn’t about the performance on this task by this point. Sir Alan had by this point decided that Naomi was the most expendable because he was more keen on having Tre and Simon move forward. As a result Simon could, and did make a massive mess of the whole task and was let off…
So any clues as to who might win? Not a chance – he described both Simon and Kristina as eminently employable. We’ll just have to wait until Wednesday to find out who he picks.