The Apprentice Week 11 – Final Interview
July 11, 2013 1 Comment
The Apprentice Week 11 – Final Interview
So we now know that the winner of this year’s Apprentice will be female. Luisa and Leah will contest next week’s final to become Lord Sugar’s Business Partner.
This week the candidates were interviewed by 4 of Lord Sugars’s most trusted advisers; Margaret Mountford, Claude Littner, Claudine Collings, Mike Suter. It is their job to sort out the wheat from the chaff.
The process is great to watch, but must have been tough to go through, and in the end it comes down to how strong the business idea is.
In the Boardroom, Jordan is quickly dispensed with because he does not own his business idea (in keeping with his experience as a Business Analyst). Next to be fired is Neil, the most consistent performer in the series. His plan involves an online Estate Agency, but when it is pointed out that his plan has a fatal flaw in it and he refuses to see it, he is fired. It is with genuine regret that Sugar lets hime go.
Francesca fails because of the (lack of) numbers in her business plan. She has run 3 successful businesses, but couldn’t give Claude the turnover. Nor could she justify her business projections for the proposed new business. So she was fired.
That leaves the final to be contested by Luisa, who has a new baking brand business idea and Leah who has a well researched idea for affordable cosmetic surgery. It is no surprise that Luisa is in the final, as she has the drive and has smoothed off her rough edges in recent weeks. In the clips we saw she came across as confident and assertive, and kept her frustration in check. Leah has little experience, but a well thought out idea. Both produced poor plans, but came across well face to face.
In the end it was the correct decision. Both are strong candidates, and it will be a great final. The only disappointment for Lord Sugar is Neil not being there. In the earlier series of tHe apprentice, Neil would have won and made a good employee. Without a solid business plan he had to go.
May the best woman win.
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No argument from me about the two finalists, although Francesca’s plan looked solid and could have scaled easily and quickly via a franchising model. As demonstrated with Neil, you cannot survive without a credible business plan, and his had too many question marks hanging over it for him to be a viable finalist.
Jordan? Two words: Rubik’s cube. This was a classic set-up-to-fail for him, from his failure to solve the puzzle to his gradual dismantling by Claude and the others. Never stood a chance.
My money’s on Luisa – the reputational risk attached to Leah’s more exciting plan is a big red flag for me as far as Sugar is concerned.
My usual rambling thoughts:
http://slouchingtowardstv.com/2013/07/11/the-apprentice-the-best-laid-plans/