Right well its time for another post on the latest episode of The Apprentice, now in its tenth series, this post will cover episode 10, with just two weeks to go we really are getting down to the business end of the process with only seven candidates left. So without further delay let's have a look at this week's episode.....
So in this episode the two teams, Tenacity and Summit were given the task by Lord Sugar to come up with a brand of premium puddings and pitch them to different companies and the team who came up with the most orders will win. So Roisin was picked by Lord Sugar to lead Summit, as he said the task would reflect her business plan as she wants to go into the readymeal business and he picked Katie to lead team Tenacity as she was proposing a business plan to open and run a restaurant. In Tenacity, Sanjay was moved over and he quickly expressed once in the team how pleased he was to be rid of Bianca (as the two of them didn't seem to get on) and Katie decided that she would take care of the flavouring for the puddings, whereas Mark and Sanjay did the branding, which they called "A trifle different". The team's flavour samples didn't go down too well with the companies as whilst they liked two of the flavours, they didn't like the third which had too much saffron in it and the packaging was pretty bland. This was further compounded by the fact that Katie's pitch was rather bland aswell and Mark, despite raving about his abilities as a salesman, struggled badly during his pitch as he got nervous and kept coughing throughout it. In team Summit, Roisin came up with the idea of doing a cheescake that had a tea theme to it and they called it "Teapot". Daniel had been moved over to Summit at the behest of Lord Sugar and he actually finally proved his worth in the pitches as even though Roisin had a word with him about not wanting him to contribute to the pitching, he decided to ignore that and stepped in during second and third pitches, much to Roisin displeasure, but they went down well with the companies. Despite any issues that they had as a team, the companies seemed to like their idea for "Teapot" and felt that it was marketable.
Back in the boardroom the two teams found out that the result of their product and pitches but it was Summit that came out on top as they received more orders of 25,500 whereas Tenacity only received 13,500 units. This meant that with Summit's victory that the four team members, Roisin, Bianca, Solomon and Daniel had all made it into the final five and their treat was to enjoy some macaroons and martinis on an expensive yacht.
As for Tenacity they headed back into the boardroom where Lord Sugar criticised Katie for showing a lack of knowledge of the flavours for the puddings and one of them was deemed as "inedible" by one of the companies which had saffron in it. Mark and Sanjay also came under fire for producing such bland and dull labeling for the product, which contributed to it be less marketable than the other teams. Lord Sugar however was most concerned by the lack of Katie's knowledge yet she wanted to start a restaurant business, but he also recognised that she most likely wouldn't make a good enough return for him to invest his money in her, so with regret, Lord Sugar fired Katie. Next up Lord Sugar turned his attentions to Sanjay as he was also concerned about where there would be any profit in his business plan and wouldn't make sufficient money either, so he fired Sanjay. As for Mark, Lord Sugar did recognise that Mark's business plan involving digital marketing sales had the potential to make money so he gave him one more chance to stay in the process, completing the final five line-up.
Well it has to be said in terms of their business plans that I had to agree with Lord Sugar's decision to fire Sanjay and Katie as Katie clearly couldn't show that in running one restaurant that she could make enough money for her business to be investable enough and Sanjay clearly didn't have enough understanding of the fitness market which he intended to go into and how he could make enough money out of the business either. So in a way it was a good thing that they talked about their plans before they had a chance to get into the final five as they most likely would have been dismissed out the door by Lord Sugar's advisors.
But one thing I didn't like, well two actually, were first of all Lord Sugar's ignorance toward Katie as he accused her of having no knowledge about the restaurant business and she carried on saying she had been working in restaurants in the different posts since she was 15. And this prompted Lord Sugar to sarcastically say "well I have been to MacDonalds but that's doesn't mean I know anything about their infrastructure!" which shows he has a general lack of understanding about certain things himself, which he masks up by being rather ignorant and making these sorts of comments. And we see this all too often from him that he tells the candidates how useless they can be in certain situations yet I would like to see how he would deal with those situations if he was flung into them himself! So in a way Lord Sugar really has a rather blinkered approach to business and there are definitely times where he is too quick to dismiss candidates without all the proper facts at hand either. And secondly I didn't like the way one of the Lord Sugar's aides, Karren Brady (who followed team Tenacity around) stirred the pot in the boardroom by saying to Sanjay how he slagged off Bianca by saying how glad he was to see the back of her after he was moved over to Tenacity, which caused some unecessary embarrassment and tension in the boardroom, leaving Sanjay embarrassed and Bianca bemused. So I just thought it was inappropriate of Karren to do that to make such sly barbed comments as I think if there is to be a time for such things and that wasn't one of them. So in my opinion whilst the candidates all have their foibles, Lord Sugar and his advisors are hardly perfect themselves either!
So that's the final five set and next week is my favourite stage of the series where the five remaining candidates present their business plans to four of Lord Sugar's advisors, who put them through some gruelling interviews and the advisors will include the scary Claude Litner and the surprise inclusion of series 8's winner, Ricky Martin. So no doubt they will all come under fire from them so it should be fun no doubt and it will be interesting to see who will come out on top.
Well that's it for now and I'll be bacckkkkk sometime soon!
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