Right we are now at my favourite stage of The Apprentice, which sees the 10th series hit its penultimate episode, the semi final stage where the five remaning candidates present their business plans to four of Lord Sugar's most trusted advisors where they are put under a series of intensive and gruelling interviews. So let's see who came out on top in the interviews and the boardroom....
So with the final five, Mark, Daniel, Bianca, Roisin and Solomon in search of a place in the final they next had to present their business plans, as I mentioned to Lord Sugar's four advisors who are the ruthless and no-nonsense Claude Litner, the cool Mike Souter, the decidely stern Claudine Collins and the former Apprentice winner of series 8, Ricky Martin. Ricky was a bit of a surprise inclusion but it was revealed that Margaret Mountford chose not to come back to the show as an advisor, and Ricky got alot of criticism as a result as many viewers felt that he lacked the experience to be one of the advisors (which is a bit unfair). So the five candidates had to undergo a series of tough interviews from each of the four advisors which proved to be a very trying process for them.
Starting with Mark, who's business plan was to start up his own digital marketing company, actually appeared the most nervous going into the interviews actually performed pretty well despite a slow start with Ricky, who accused him of being deceitful on his CV as he felt he was lying about being a sales manager of a company where he had only worked for two years and was the manager there for less than a year. Mark also managed the nigh impossible also by impressing Claude who often delights in tearing candidates to shreads and ripping them a new one in his interviews and even at one stage smiled and said to Mark that he gave a "very good answer". It was also noted that while Mark had the poorest track record in the series for losing tasks, he also sold the most out of any candidate.
Next up Daniel didn't fare quite as well as his business plan came under fire for being poorly concieved and thought out as Daniel proposed to offer an online party/events planning website where the user can book everything they need from tables, chairs, drinks, bookings for hotels, venues etc and Claude dismissed his plan as being ridiculous. Daniel did however receive some recognition from some of the advisors, particularly Claudine, as he appeared to have grown throughout the process as a person and learned more about himself than the others did. However Mike Souter was less than impressed with Daniel as he recognised how poor his sales figures were in comparison to Mark's, who he pointed out had consistently outsold him throughout the process (I wonder if Mark slipped Mike a few quid to say that on his behalf!).
Roisin despite being one of the show's strongest candidates, really let herself down with her business plan as the advisors all thought her plan to launch a healthy readymeal business to the consumer markets was far too ambitious as she had aspirations to "go global" which was quickly dismissed as being ludicrous. It was also revealed that Roisin had not done proper research either into her business and was also not aware of the fact that the special ingredient that she planned to use, which she thought is not being used in any other readymeal product on the market, but Mike quickly proved her wrong by producing two readymeals, one of which featured that very igredient, leaving Roisin somewhat speechless. Roisin also was criticised for her numbers aswell, given that she is an accountant, yet given her aspirations to think big, Claude pointed out to her given the projections in her plan she would run out of money after a month!
Bianca next, her business plan was to make hosieries and she generally did quite well in her interviews as her plan seemed to be quite credible and seemed to find a gap in the market (and often used cliche in the show!). But Bianca was criticised however by one of the advisors Claudine (Claude and Claudine, funny eh??!) who thought that she exhibited very little personality and that she used her professionalism as a mask, which left Bianca very upset and emotional. And during her interview with Ricky she broke down in tears as she expressed her concerns over how she felt her character had come into question and she felt very upset by that.
And last of all but not least was Solomon, who's business plan, which actually the purpose of escapes me but it was something to do with an ideas giving service for students. Anyway, Solomon did not fair that well in his interviews even though some of the interviews appeared to admire his youth enthusiasm, but overall he was though to be somewhat niave as well. This was especially apparent in his business plan, which consisted of only 8 pages and most of those pages had nothing but drawings of his company logo! And to say this didn't go down well with Claude was something of an understatement as despite giving Solomon false hopes by praising the simple and effective layout of his CV, he then lambasted the poor lad for his business plan which he called "a bloody disgrace!" and was so appalled by it he demanded Solomon to leave the room (which rattled Solomon so much he tried to leave the room the wrong way!) without interviewing him any further.
After the interviews were finished Lord Sugar then met with his advisors who gave their opinions on the candidates and from there he brought them back in to decide their fate and who would reach the final. Lord Sugar quickly decided to fire Solomon first as he recognised that he was somewhat immature and that his business plan was far from realistic and more based on youthful naivety. Next up Lord Sugar turned his attentions to Roisin as he expressed his disappointment in her plan and he recognised that her complete lack of experience of the readymeal business was her downfall not to mention that her numbers didn't stack up and was against the idea of her going to banks to get further credit, so with regret, Roisin was fired.
After this Lord Sugar had a tough decision to make as he was down the final three with Mark, Daniel and Bianca. Lord Sugar seemed interested and intruiged by Bianca's hosieries business plan and recognised it had potential, whereas he also thought that Mark had a credible business plan based on a business he was already in based in digital marketing, but he also noted that so many other people are doing digital marketing, which meant it was nothing new on offer. However as for Daniel well it was finally the end of the road as Lord Sugar felt his business plan was the weakest of the three, but he did give Daniel some credit for having learned and changed his attitude throughout the process and wished him well for the future, which saw the final two candidates, Mark and Bianca all set to fight to become Lord Sugar's new business partner.
Well there was no doubt that this was a very entertaining episode and while there were not too many dramatic revelations the interviews did provide some good fun moments, such as where Mike Souter put Roisin on the spot and displayed two readymeal items to her that were already on the market doing what she was proposing to do in her plan. There were also another fun moment where Mike wanted Solomon to give him an example of the types of applications he had created for mobile technology, but each one was basically an example of a hotel, or a bed or some other amenity! But my favourite part was seeing Claude berate poor Solomon for his business plan, which was a rather childish attempt at trying to put together a plan that would have looked more at home as a school homework project! And Claude's bemusement was priceless where he set up an eager Solomon to take a massive fall after having praise for his CV and even said that it "filled me with pleasure, as its very mature, well written and there's no boasts or brags about how great a salesman you are" before he got to the business plan and said "frankly, its a bloody disgrace!" and he told him to leave which left Solomon both terrified and embarrassed. And Solomon even tried to appease Claude over his plan who quickly berated him again and said "Two bloody pages of sailboats! Pictures of bloody sailboats! What do you think you are coming here for?! You're taking the piss!" and he then chastised Solomon for taking a wrong turn in trying to find the exit as Claude said sharply "That's not the way out!".
So that's it the Apprentice final is set and its between Mark and Bianca, both of whom are very capable candidates to be Lord Sugar's business partner. So who is most likely to win??? Well Mark on paper would appear to be the favourite but for me I think Bianca might just win this one as her business plan just appears to be a bit more edgy and interesting to Lord Sugar than Mark's (at least that's what he intimated in the boardroom). Bianca did come under fire for appearing to have little personality and having a more professional facade during the interviews, but I think she is a very credible candidate and she definitely deserves her place in the final. And I also remember Bianca's pitch in New York for the "Big Dawg" soft drink where she came across very well and as being quite engaging so I think she should do well in the final with her presentation and if she repeats that standard it might just tip the balance in her favour.
Mark on the other is onto a pretty safe bet with his digital marketing business but Lord Sugar recognised how its already a very crowded market and there so many companies doing it. Mark also was noted for choking last week during a big sales pitch and in the preview for the final episode we see Mark is at it again as he appears to start his presentation nervously coughing in front of a whole room of business people not to mention Lord Sugar! I also feel that Mark has always believed a little too much in his own legend and he even teased Bianca in the car back to the house after the boardroom as he said to her "God! I can't wait to win this! I wouldn't like to be in your shoes, Bianca!". There is no doubt whilst the guy is a credible and talented salesman and a good overall candidate, he is still a bit of a dick! However I might be wrong and we will just need to wait and see who will come Lord Sugar's new business partner.
As for the others well I was quite surprised that Roisin didn't make it to the final as she really has been a very solid candidate throughout, but in the end I guess it really does come down to how well their business plans stack up and unfortunately for Roisin her plan just didn't, so the hopes of Ireland getting two winners in a row for the Apprentice didn't happen this year. Daniel on the other hand well I'm not too surprised that he was let go but I always thought he would probably get 3rd place and ultimately in the battle between Mark vs Daniel, Mark finally won. To be fair to Daniel he did exhibit signs of growth and maturity as the process went on even though he still peppered his CV with lies and delusion (one example was that Daniel claimed that he received an award for salesmen of the year back in 2009 when he worked with one firm and Mike Souter called them up and they said he never won an award the whole time he worked for them!). As for Solomon well it wasn't much of a surprise that he wouldn't become Lord Sugar's business partner as despite his enthusiasm and keeness, which helped him throughout the process, he showed a lack of maturity and naivety with his less than impressive business plan. And its hard to say if Solomon would have made it as far as the final five if he hadn't been in the winning team so often, perhaps he might have, but who knows? Regardless though Solomon did really well to get into the final five and no doubt he will go on to make a success for himself.
Anyway so that's it for now and I will be back soon with yet another post and I will do one on the outcome of who won The Apprentice final.
Until the next one see you later.
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