Posts Tagged ‘sir alan sugar’

Well we reached the finale of The Apprentice Series 5 last night.  Going head to head were Yasmina and Kate to land the job as Sir Alan’s Apprentice.

This year the two finalists were asked to create a brand new box of chocolates and the supporting marketing campaign.  It was a tough task as you would expect. Some of the past contestants returned to help out the two finalists.

This year was always going to be a close run thing as we had two highly capable individuals.  In my view either of them would have been worthy winners based on the task and their performances over the course of the last two weeks.

So what were the key learning points from the final of The Apprentice 2009?

1. Research really matters when it comes to something like a product launch.  Yasmina chose to go to a small focus group and a specialist shop.  From what we saw, it looked like Kate relied on checking out the competition in a supermarket.

2. You need to be able and willing to change track if the market is telling you that they have doubts about what you are offering, which Yasmina did.

3. Margin will always be a key consideration.  Yasmina’s background running her own restaurant meant that she had more focus on cost and selling price.

4. Creativity, especially when it comes to packaging really matters.  It is not always the smartest or brightest of people who are the most creative.

5. Communicating your ideas to third parties like a designer is important.  Yasmina and her team really got the essence of what their product was about and this was reflected in a slightly more exciting box.

6. Preparation is the foundation of a good presentation and both candidates did well on this aspect.

7. Perseverance and self belief can carry you through.  Yasmina was clearly struggling in the presentation rehearsal but kept going and delivered a highly credible presentation when it mattered.

8. You need to anticipate the questions that will arise from any presentation.  It was not clear that either of the candidates had given this much thought based on the footage we saw.

Back in the boardroom it was clear that Sir Alan was finding it hard to make the call.  In the end he hired Yasmina.  From my own perspective, it was probably down to the fact that Yasmina just had that little edge in terms of commercial awareness and business sense.  She was just that little bit more rounded.

So what was your take on the choice of the winner of The Apprentice 2009?

So we reached Week 10 of The Apprentice last night.  This week the teams had to select products and sell them on a shopping channel to the public.  The team selling most won the task.

Sir Alan made it clear that the aim of the task was to see who could cope under intense pressure and demonstrate business flair.

The Project Manager for Ignite was Howard with Yasmina (after some debate with Debra) acting as Project Manager for Empire. With only three on each team it was vital that the teams worked well together and there was clear evidence that overall they did.

The two teams took different strategies when it came to product selection.  Empire’s Project Manager made it clear that she did not want to be too risky.  As a result all of the products they chose to sell were low price and selling volume was important.  Ignite by contrast chose a mixture of higher priced and lower priced items.

When it came down to the final numbers, Empire, who had gone for the low value items had a narrow victory and had Debra to thank for selling around £900 of the £1,541.88 sales total.  Ignite had highly credible sales of £1376.73.

As always, there were lessons to learn.

1. Howard was by far the best of the 3 team members on Ignite when it came to the practice audition but despite probably knowing this chose to present with Lorraine.  On hindsight, it might have been a stronger combination to have Lorraine and Kate present the fashion product and the fryer.  Yet Howard should be acknowledged for supporting Lorraine after she struggled with the audition.

2. Yasmina set out a clear strategy of low value, high volume which would have probably helped with the product selection choices.  The absence of a definite strategy on Ignite maybe resulted in them spreading their product mix too widely.

3. Lorraine and Howard’s big downfall was that they spent too much time talking about the product (the fryer) and the chips it produced rather than plugging the phone number and web-site where they could purchase it.

4. The uniqueness of the fryer was that it used very little oil yet we never saw either Lorraine or Howard use this in the selling process.  Maybe a health benefit could have been used and perhaps there was a point about thinking creatively.

5. A good sales person will be able to shift volume of low price products and Debra certainly demonstrated this highly effectively.

6. Team working between the person directing and the person selling is absolutely vital.  If the person directing feeds good ideas to the presenter it really can make a difference.

In the end Kate, Lorraine and Howard found themselves in the boardroom facing Sir Alan knowing that if they survived they were in the semi-final.  In the end Sir Alan fired Howard, referring to him as too much of Steady Eddy for his organisation.

You can watch The Apprentice on BBC1 at 9pm on Wednesday or on the BBCiplayer.

Last night we reached week 9 of The Apprentice in the UK.  With only three weeks remaining and 7 candidates left the pressure is mounting.

This week the teams were given a stand at the Baby Show in London.  They had to interview suppliers, choose two products and sell them at the Baby Show the following day.  The team that sold most won the task.

Sir Alan chose the Project Managers for the two teams.  James was PM for Empire and Lorraine the PM for Ignite.

Empire gambled on a high end highly expensive rocking horse as one of their products and a home birthing pool as their lower end product.

Ignite went for a buggy which folded down so small that it could be taken on an aeroplane as hand luggage as their main product.  They also chose a safety helmet as a low cost impulse buy item.

Back in the boardroom when the sales were revealed, Ignite emerged as winners with sales of £1,669 compared to £722 for Empire.

As ever there were many lessons arising from the show:

1. Product research is important and from what we saw both teams did that quite well.

2. In terms of decision making, the teams weighed up the pros and cons and made their choices with little evidence of procrastination.

3. The smaller teams meant that there was much more willingness to work together and little or no bickering.

4. Sometimes you do need to be willing to take a risk.  The rocking horse was a risk but had Empire sold just one, they would have easily won the task.

5. If Empire and in particular Debra and Ben made one mistake with the rocking horse it was not negotiating a baby show special discount.

6. Lorraine the PM of Ignite only realised that she did not have exclusive rights to sell the buggy at the show when she saw it in the booth of another supplier.  On the other hand, when challenged about this by Sir Alan, she took responsibility and admitted that she had made a mistake.  Probably the most powerful demonstration of personal responsibility taking this series.

7. As PM, Lorraine showed that she had faith in the team’s selling ability and demonstrated that despite differences with Kate in the past, she was mature and professional enough to move on.

When it came to the final choice, Ben, James and Debra were the three who were at risk of being fired.  Sir Alan made his choice and it was Ben who was fired.

You can watch The Apprentice every Wednesday at 9pm on BBC1 or on the BBCiplayer.

In the second week of The Apprentice, the teams were tasked with providing a catering service aimed at people in the City of London.

Unlike the first week, there were two obvious people to lead the teams.  Both had direct experience in the catering industry.

As always there were plenty of learning points.  So what were the key learning points:

1. Know the customer and understand that what you offer needs to equate to their expectations
2. If you fail to keep control of your costs you are destined for problems
3. Don’t promise one level of quality and then deliver something completely different
4. If you put yourself forward as being the person to lead because of your expertise, make sure you deliver
5. Sometimes it is easier to offer less choice but better quality
6. Dissatisfied customers will let you know.  In this task the boys team only received about half of the originally agreed fee for their evening reception and the girls also had a significant reduction in their fee

You can watch The Apprentice every Wednesday at 9pm on BBC One or on the BBCiplayer