Raj Dhonota

Whilst watching the first episode of The Apprentice I tried to put aside my experience and criticism of the show to see if The Apprentice really could teach its viewers any business lessons or whether it was all just driven for the sake of good TV. That’s not to say I am about to start commenting on individual candidates because that would be unfair and hypocritical knowing how the producers manipulate events to create good TV. However, given the edit is more favourable to Lord Sugar, there is no reason why we can’t analyse events in the boardroom to see if we can learn from someone regarded as one of this country’s most successful entrepreneurs.

To remind ourselves, this week’s task was to take £250, buy produce, add value and to sell it. The team with the biggest return would win. Edward Hunter was leader for Team Logic; Melody Hossaini leader for Team Venture. Team Venture win. Leon Doyle, Gavin Winstanley and Edward Hunter end up as the final three in the boardroom. Edward Hunter is fired.

The first thing that hit me when watching the boardroom was that Lord Sugar criticised the girls’ team for not spending the full £250 he gave them. This struck me to be very odd. Lord Sugar is looking for a business partner, not just a sales person. And in a business partner, surely he would expect his partner to be careful with his money, and not go out gung ho and spend it all as quickly as they could. He would expect them to ensure that they get things done in a way that reserved as much cash flow as possible, until such time as the business was able to generate sales. Yet, contrary to what one would expect, he seemed to be suggesting that the girls should have gone out and blown the lot at the beginning leaving no room for any contingency. In my opinion, they should have been commended for their prudence not criticised for it. They had won after all!

The other issue I have is that, despite Lord Sugar stating at the beginning that he does not want “a bloody sales person” but “someone with a brain”, there is a continual assumption in the boardroom that if you have not sold, you have not performed. Anyone who is willing to shed the limelight in order to do other tasks for the benefit of the team are marginalised and criticised. This was a common theme during the first series and nothing appears to have changed. In this episode, Alex was universally criticised for remaining in the kitchen.

Karen Brady was the first saying “I can confirm that I saw you cleaning and cutting bread…. It’s important to cut the bread but everybody else sold but you didn’t sell.” Lord Sugar in one of his many rhetorical questions followed up with “Back Office was you then?” and Nick Hewer, probably feeling a little left out at this stage, added the kitchen was “a good place to hide.”

Now clearly being able to generate sales is critical to any business, but it is not the only skill required to be able to succeed or to successfully run a business. In fact I know many business people who are running very successful businesses who would readily admit that they not the best of sellers but have other skills fundamental to managing their business. Business Link lists a whole range of skills that are required including financial management, planning, marketing, and relationship management. Even Lord Sugar acknowledged this when he said that a lot of accountants ended up as big bosses of companies. Yet when it comes down to it, a strong seller seems to get an easier ride than someone who was willing to do a less glamorous task to help the team win; and this clearly flies in the face of Lord Sugar saying that he does not want “a bloody sales person” but “someone with a brain”. I feel it does a disservice to anyone who fulfils a valuable support type role in business. Is Lord Sugar saying that the technicians he used to employ were any less important than his sales team? Is Karen Brady saying that the physiotherapists at West Ham are less important than the ticket sales team? Surely not, or at the very least, I hope not.

In this case, as Alex had rightly stated, that without him being in the kitchen there would have been no front office sales but it seemed to be brushed aside and I have no doubt that he will suffer later on because of it.

So did we learn anything from The Apprentice that we can put into practice in the real world? Everyone has their own interpretation of events, so I’ll let you judge for yourself.

On a lighter note, Lord Sugar warned Leon Doyle that he hadn’t “seen anything sparkling in” him. Fear not Leon, put some glitter on, and you’ll be just fine!

With £250,000 on the table, the curiosity was just too great not to sit down and watch The Apprentice for the first time since the sixth episode of the first series.

How would such a prize change things on The Apprentice? Was it really £250,000 in cash as the hype seemed to suggest? Would the process change to provide a sterner challenge to reflect the prize on offer and would the type of candidates that apply to be on the show change? So many questions that made the thought of wasting an hour seem worthwhile but always mindful of what curiosity had done to the cat!

So, shoes to one side and anything hard out of the way to protect my TV screen, I sat down in front of the TV. To be honest, putting aside any notion that The Apprentice has anything to do with business ability, watching it was not as painful as I thought it would be. In fact, it was quite entertaining but I have always maintained that, despite vehemently disagreeing with the way producers manipulate events and control the outcome, they have done their job well –because their job is about getting the maximum possible ratings regardless of how far the final edit distorts what really happened.

It’s not long before we hear from Lord Sugar. He’s fed up with our moaning culture; he wants to show everyone how easy it is to start up in business and that he is going to inject £250,000 worth of cash and value into a business.” Hang on a minute! Cash and value? What does that mean? Alarm bells started to ring.

It wasn’t £250,000 cash, but £250,000 “cash and value”. I could be wrong, but to me that sounds like some cash and the rest possibly made up of Lord Sugar’s time or even the time of an employee of Lord Sugar. But assuming it is Lord Sugar’s time, if you have to pay a qualified partner solicitor or accountant in the region of £250 an hour, how would a qualified Lord, one of the wealthiest people in this country, value his time? A quick search on the internet seems to suggest that it could be anything as much as £5000 a day! What appears clear to me, however, is that the cash on offer is not going to anywhere near £250,000.

We then hear that any business will be a 50/50 partnership meaning that the winner will not only not get anywhere near the £250,000 in cash, but that they would also have to give away a 50% share in their business before they even get started. That’s more than any of the Dragons would take in the Den and, from that show alone, more than most people wanting to start a business would be willing to part with. Add into the mix the price at which Lord Sugar will value his time and therefore be available to advise and guide the eventual winner, and you realise nothing has really changed. It going to be pretty much the same old story. Will it really attract 16 of this country’s top entrepreneurial elite?

Suddenly that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is looking more like a pot of silver. Suddenly I realise that I was taken in by the hype for a second time! Arghhhh!

Wow! £250,000!! Without stating the obvious, but that’s a QUARTER of a MILLION pounds!! AND the chance to spend it setting up a business rather than having to work for one of Lord Sugar’s companies!! Hey Lord Sugar, can I reapply? I promise to scream and shout as much as the producers would like me to. Hell, I’ve still got Saira Khan’s megaphone and I’ll bring that with me so that we can Sell Sell Sell in a manner that would make Del Boy proud!

Just kidding! £250,000 would definitely have hit all the right buttons for me back then, but you’d have to add on a few more noughts to make it worth considering now. But still £250,000! That’s a QUARTER of a MILLION pounds!! Wow!

Now, call me a sceptic, or a realist, but it’d be great to know what’s in the small print of the deal. I just can’t see any business person, let alone Lord Sugar, risking that kind of cash on a blind venture. What happens if he doesn’t like the business idea or see any potential in it? Will he make the winner start a business of his own choice? Has the prize really and so suddenly become so very attractive, or are we just believing the hype, because I can tell you, there is plenty of that when it comes to The Apprentice. I guess we will just have to watch that space to find out.

However you look at it though, the nature of the prize does represent a huge sea change, and you can’t help but wonder why? The official reason is that Lord Sugar was fed up with all the “moaning” about banks not lending money, and that he wanted to show everyone how “easy” it is to start a business. But I don’t quite see the logic because surely everyone would agree that it would be damn easy to start any business with £250,000 in your back pocket, so what’s to prove? So, is that really the main reason for the change, or could there be other reasons?

Could it be that the ratings were dwindling after seven episodes of the same monotonous finger pointing, and a new injection of interest was required? If that’s the reason maybe it has worked because it has got me interested, and I have refused to watch the show since Episode 6 of the first series even though I was not fired until episode 9!

Or, was it the realisation that the show needed improving and the prize of working for one of Lord Sugar’s companies, or on the type of projects previous winners were being offered, would not attract anywhere near the type of candidate required to improve the show? That’s not taking anything away from Lord Sugar. How can you? But it can’t be denied that his businesses had peaked decades ago, and today would not be able to attract the type of creative and ambitious candidates that the empires of great entrepreneurs such as Sir Richard Branson or Sir Philip Green would be able to.

Whatever the reason for changing the prize, it raises so many questions. How will the status quo of the 12 week show be affected? Has the prize helped to attract a better group of candidates? Will the decision making process change? What will happen when the candidate wins? Will the candidate really have £250,000 cash to invest in any business of their choice? How will the business relationship work out? And…what if the business ends up failing?! It certainly seems a far greater risk than simply having to employ someone for a year.

In all of this uncertainty, only one certainty exists: that with so many questions fuelling more interest and higher ratings for The Apprentice, Lord Sugar and the producers of The Apprentice will be the stand out winners. And perhaps herein we have found the real answer to this conundrum.