We want to share an important update with our Betfair Community users.
Over the coming months, the Betfair Community platform will be winding down. The final active day for the platform will be December 21st. From December 22nd, users will no longer be able to access the platform.
Your discussions, insights, engagement, and, most importantly, feedback have helped shape the platform and guided innovation. Your feedback continues to be important to us, and we will continue to listen via our dedicated feedback channels, as well as through product testing and innovations.
To share your feedback and experience, visit: https://support.betfair.com/app/home
Chit Chat
There is currently 1 person viewing this thread.
These 442 comments are related to the topic:
The Apprentice
The Apprentice
sort by:
Show
per page
Replies: 442
|
By:
this is all a trifle bizarre
|
|
By:
Daniel wins this show - the man is a fkin bellend but must have a great business plan
 |
|
By:
Daniel and Lord Alan's business plan is to be the new morecombe and wise
|
|
By:
it's crunch time but none of the clients were biting
|
|
By:
Must have been filmed after a heavy West Ham defeat - Karren in a foul mood
|
|
By:
Tesco going in big guns on the tea pot
|
|
By:
Roisin
 |
|
By:
They won as a result of an order from a company under investigation for financial fraud
 |
|
By:
wait till the retailer starts asking for contributions they'll be nothing left
|
|
By:
First order is always free stock
|
|
By:
they'll all go bar Mark
|
|
By:
The Aussie is sweating. can't be used to this heat
|
|
By:
Crying
|
|
By:
Sanjay just using the investment to lure in buff men from the gym
|
|
By:
Why bother with a task, those two had to go once they lost the task, the swap over at the beginning was solely made so whoever won he was getting rid of two people who's business plan was total bullsh!t.
|
|
By:
What is Mark's business plan?
|
|
By:
Yes bit chit they just ignored the task, but hopefully we get to see Mark choking some more
|
|
By:
sugar his face punched lord hard needs
|
|
By:
The rules changed. As Mark told the others when he got back to the house (btw, loved Roisin going out to look for Katie): it is no longer about the tasks; it is about you and your business plan. Though in any case, all that remains are interviews and the final.
Did Lord Sugar sack the right people? Sanjay's business plan was probably doomed when it was savaged by Mark, wearing his insider's hat, but in any case, it seemed to depend on the massively optimistic assumption of 100 per cent adoption by the personal fitness sector. Katie might have felt more hard done by, since if her healthy restaurant works in one place, it could then be duplicated nationwide. That is a big if, though, since most restaurants go bust and Katie knows nothing about running one, aside from her part-time job as a waiter when she was 15. It is telling that both Sanjay and Katie have abandoned these plans, as they told Dara on You're Fired. |
|
By:
So who is left? The interviews next week get rid of a further three people, leaving two for the final (on Sunday week, not Wednesday).
Roisin -- something to do with ready meals. Lord Sugar's name would mean a good chance of getting onto the supermarket shelves but it is a highly competitive sector, and the supermarkets are notorious for squeezing suppliers' margins. And that is pretty much all we know about their business plans. Solomon -- the preview clip mentioned willykinis -- the running gag in the wake-up sequences was that Solomon could not tie his tie but now he seems to be regressing mentally by the week: clowning around instead of negotiating to buy the skeleton; unable to say "anatomical", and this week confusing camomile with caramel. Daniel -- a confrontational fantasist who consistently overpromises and underdelivers. Mark -- the man can sell but he is not creative, can't manage, and this week showed he cannot pitch either. He is also the one most obviously playing his own Machiavellian game. Every series has a one-dimensional sales droid: they never win. Bianca -- panned for high profile mistakes like giving exclusivity in Westminster for just six units, and telling the tourists they were her last chance of selling tickets (although really, that was quite a legitimate tactic and the real disappointment was that she did not have the wit to spin it as such in the boardroom -- real companies do discount perishable items at the end of the day). Despite her business sense, is she that bright? |
|
By:
On reflection, there was a bigger question mark over Katie's business plan: what did Katie herself bring to the party, other than a desire to make money?
There have been three winners since they changed the prize. Tom had an existing product and a tract record of product design. Ricky (scientific recruitment) and Leah (aesthetic medicine: botox and fillers) had specific experience and expertise in their industries. Katie admitted she'd need to hire a restaurant manager and a chef. Lord Sugar would provide the money. If Katie fell under a bus, would they need to replace her? |
|
By:
Katie was doomed as soon as she said she wanted to open a 'healthy eating' restaraunt in Sunderland of all places. I can imagine the first customer who orders something called a 'salad'
"Wayaay man what the fook is this green stuff reet here on my plate like canny lass"? |
|
By:
On rewatching Mark's pitch from hell, it is clear his coughing fit may have been the best part. He pitches like someone who has never pitched before but has learnt how to do it from watching The Apprentice.
"Guys, the luxury dessert market has just reached £1.45 billion," he starts. Leaving aside the over-familiar and inappropriate "guys", why does he think that Tesco buyers know less than he does about the dessert market? This is what they do for a living, whereas Mark read a briefing note in the back of the car taking them there. It was noticeable that none of the women, Bianca and Roisin on the other team, or Katie on Mark's side, started by teaching their grandmothers to suck eggs. Instead they got straight down to business: this is what we have created; this is what we want you to buy; and this is why it will appeal to your customers. Still, it did lead to Ed Byrne's joke about the stallion becoming a little hoarse. |
|
By:
BBC1 10.35 tonight (or a bit later in Scotland and NI) -- The Final Five.
The remaining boardroom survivors Bianca, Daniel, Mark, Roisin and Solomon are profiled by family, friends and former bosses, as well as Alan Sugar's aides Nick Hewer and Karren Brady, who discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each of the participants vying for the £250,000 prize. They’ve got families. They’ve got non-work clothes. They’ve got life stories, a hinterland. There are snaps and home movies of them in short trousers or fairy dresses – this doc will be full of them, along with endearing anecdotes about how competitive they were as kids. Those of us who have to get up at 3am might catch it a bit later on iplayer. |
|
By:
Love this programme but this year's edition has gone downhill. Too many have been fired based on their business plan rather than task performance, as mentioned Daniel must have a helluva business plan.
Do Sir Alan and co cherry pick the best candidates and ideas they receive prior to filming and then put this lot on the telly just for entertainment value, with maybe 2 or 3 potentially viable plans in total between them, seeing as they do actually have to invest in one of them? |
|
By:
@the_don -- this year's edition has gone downhill
Agreed, although I think its main drawback was the extra contestants, which meant for the first few episodes it was hard to keep track of everyone, let alone form an opinion about whether they deserved to win. It also messed up the firings, with two of team trifle needing to be sacked just to get the numbers right for the Final Five episode (tonight, BBC1). I'm not sure it is Daniel's business plan keeping him in, although perhaps it is -- we shan't find out until the interviews on Wednesday. Rather, I think it is Lord Sugar's perennial weakness for brash, uneducated sales types who remind him of the young AMS, and who therefore always overstay their welcome in each series. Since Daniel has been in the tabloids splashing £30,000 on nightclub champagne and buying a Ferrari, he must be doing something right with his existing companies. Again, I think it was Mark's sales record that kept him in last week, despite him having done most to lose the pudding task with his disastrous pitch to Tesco and cheap, shoddy packaging, but maybe it was his business plan. |
|
By:
Sanjay's business plan picked to pieces in the boardroom, but no mention of Mark's?
|
|
By:
The producers needed to show Sanjay's business plan being destroyed in order that we viewers can see why he was fired (and the same goes for Katie, I suppose). Mark's (and the other four) will be examined (or torn apart) in this week's interviews.
On You're Fired, Sanjay gave the impression that he had entered more-or-less for a laugh and was not serious about the plan, although there might be an element of retrospective justification in that, but certainly he confirmed he'd not be pursuing the plan which he'd earlier been insistent would make over £1 million profit in year five. Getting on telly is one thing but the winners of The Apprentice, Masterchef, and probably the various singing ones, really need to put in an awful lot of work to win the real prize of success in the wider world. |
|
By:
Final Five notes. Bear in mind it is really all about their business plans.
Bianca runs a personal branding company. She is what she is. Bright, personable, professional. Solomon runs a tech services company streaming social media at events. Daniel's family are market traders in Deptford. He runs a pub quiz company. Roisin married a local boy but the narrator was over-stretching the term childhood sweetheart if they'd only been an item since age 21. The programme emphasised she'd lost control of the margins in the candles task (mainly due to James's fire sale approach) which for an accountant is hard to forgive. Apologies to Irish forumites but I've worked out why Roisin is hard to pronounce correctly: in Ireland the two syllables are equally stressed -- Roe-sheen -- but for the English candidates (and Lord Sugar and me) it is natural to emphasise only the second part -- so more like R'sheen. By all accounts she was very successful at accountants Ernst & Young (or EY in the modern parlance) but wants to go into the ready meal industry. Mark is a digital media sales manager. Grew up in Armidale: Australia's highest city. Top salesman. Knows nothing about racing if he thinks you take your prize stallion to the racetrack. |
|
By:
Interviews -- or rather business plans -- tonight.
Thoughts. Lord Sugar likes tech and prefers products to services. Trouble is that aside from Roisin's ready meals. we do not know what the plans are. If Mark and Solomon are pushing tech services, they could be the finalists. Daniel has drive, determination and native business sense but consistently fails to deliver. Bianca has shown poor judgement a couple of times but on the other hand, might have a great plan. Roisin could have the same credibility problem as Katie last week, unless her accounting background was in the food industry. |
|
By:
When Sanjay claimed he'd show a net profit of £1m in year 5, didn't Mark say he'd make more than that in his first year?
|
|
By:
Mark did say £1 million, now you come to mention it, although he did not say how (or more likely, he did but it was left on the cutting room floor). I imagine that claim will be greeted with some scepticism tonight but if it is even half plausible, you can see Mark reaching the final.
|
|
By:
This programme is far past its sell by date.
When it was about getting a job with Sugar, it made sense. Now it's about who has the best business plan what does it matter if you're brilliant on the various tasks? Would Sugar not be interested in the Google boys or Mark Zuckerberg if they were not great salesmen for example? |
|
By:
*not brilliant
|
|
By:
Its not real anyway. The Lord Sugar character is told who to fire for the majority of the series based on the entertainment value of the individual.
|
|
By:
The Lord Sugar character is told who to fire for the majority of the series based on the entertainment value of the individual.
If that were true, Sarah ("hitch up your skirts") and Canadian Steven would still be there. Not to mention James, the misogynist market trader. It's like X-Factor: sure, they have a laugh with the auditions but at the end they really are looking for someone good enough to add to Simon Cowell's much admired collection of fine old English banknotes. It is the same with The Apprentice. Lord Sugar really is looking for someone who can start a successful business and pay for his private jet (or at least fill up its tanks once in a while). |
|
By:
Now it's about who has the best business plan what does it matter if you're brilliant on the various tasks?
It is about two things: (a) who has the best business plan, as you say, but also (b) who has the skills to carry out their plan? The tasks are designed to answer part (b). Whether they do that is open to doubt, but that is the idea. But if we take last week's puddings where Katie made the saffron trifle -- this told us she had no idea of costs (saffron costs about half as much as gold) or taste (by all accounts it was inedible) -- so cast doubt on her business plan to open restaurants. For me, the early tasks in particular are too much about street sales and risks throwing out good candidates prematurely. Salespeople can be hired just like any other role. |
|
By:
It is true. It has been openly admitted.
|
|
By:
Ramura...you should go on as a contestant!
|