Should we take Alan Sugar seriously? I ask this question simply because more than one of the predecessor breed of businessmen on television ought never to have been taken seriously nor even given the power to indulge his supposed business acumen. That person was a certain Gerry Robinson. You may remember that a few years ago he had a programme called Troubleshooter where he was called into ailing companies or organisations, such as the National Health Service, and after the briefest of examinations told them how to fix their shortfalls.
It proved to be very popular and Robinson, with his gentle Irish brogue, was lauded as the man to solve any business crisis. What the public was not so aware of, however, was that Robinson was the man brought into Granada Television in the late 1980s to equip the company for the 21st century. Almost his first words to employees were that making television programmes was much the same as making biscuits. Well, it wasn’t. True, Robinson answered the shareholders’ prayers by pushing the share price up from the steady £2 it had bounced along at for donkey’s years to a staggering £12 or so. The City was delighted but those left working for Granada were not. Robinson cut and cut and cut. Budgets were slashed, staff made redundant and freelancers brought in until there was barely anything recognisable of what was once the best TV company in the world.
I say all this because the whole point of The Apprentice and now Young Apprentice is to examine ideas and business ability according to the Alan Sugar formula. Basically, Sugar is a barrow boy who could no doubt sell sand in bucket loads to Dubai. He’d be good at it, but that does not make for a sound businessperson. Business success is about so much more. And, as with Robinson, the profit margin and share price are not necessarily what makes for a winning business. Let us not forget the product. So, to answer my own question: no, we should not take Alan Sugar seriously.
I once produced a similar programme where three businessmen in the north-west of England judged a series of ideas and then awarded premises and some funding as a start-up to the winner. They chose the most bizarre product – something to do with making garden gnomes, as I recall. It was obvious to anyone with a bit of sense that this would fail. As if the garden gnomes’ market wasn’t already saturated with the little creatures. Sure enough, six months down the line, the poor guy had gone bust with just a shed load of unsold gnomes to show for his endeavours.
What I’m trying to say is that you should never trust a businessman or woman. Don’t be fooled by the soft brogue, the self-confidence or bullishness. Half the time they’re riding their luck.
But I will give you this: Alan Sugar is good entertainment. And Junior Apprentice, as long as it doesn’t break the hearts of some of the kids, is a choice idea. As television, it’s compelling. Five teenage boys and five teenage girls are pitted against each other to find out who has the ability to figure the market. The lads, spotty, hormonal and pale faced, all look like 50-year old men slumped in the back of one of Sugar’s rollers. The girls just look so superior – and indeed they are.
The trouble is that when Sugar spells the reality out to them, the boys, in particular, look as if they will suddenly burst into tears. But what is much more redeeming is that all these young people have oodles of spirit, and this at a time when we criticise the young so much. You might not particularly take to some of them, but you do have to admire their chutzpah.
In the first show, Sugar had the two groups doing some basic selling. They were told to go out to a street market and sell as much cheese as possible. The girls headed upmarket for London’s Covent Garden with their French cheeses, the lads went down market. The girls won hands down. In the following programme, the two teams had to come up with a new idea for outdoor camping equipment. One group went for a sledge to transport tents, bags and so forth from the car park while the other group came up with a cardboard container that doubled as a games table and shoe holder. The latter was as bad an idea as garden gnomes and rightly got the thumbs down from retailers and Lord Sugar.
Coincidentally, both Robinson and Sugar had close links to New Labour and both owe their gongs to Tony Blair. Not that this endears either of them to me and nor does the concept of capitalism for kids. Maybe we should be teaching our young people that there is more to running a successful business than simply being ruthless and selling as much as you can. Just remember not to take Lord Sugar too seriously.
