Can't believe reading the main thread tonight and some of the other posts. Moaning about budget tuna this cold bracheta that blah blah blah.

You have all missed the point of the task. The point is to be efficient, organised, make a profit, not faff around.

In fact tonight Yasmina was one of the best, if not THE best project managers ever in the Apprentice history. She was everything a project manager should be on this show. She got the whole team behind her and made £800 more than the other team.

Not saying she should win, havnt seen enough of her yet.

However reading this board tonight, most people if they were team leader of the girls tonight would most probably have gone out and spend £1000 quid on fancy products failing to provide any, even simple business brian.

Yasmina is 100 times more shrud than almost everyone on this forum tonight.

I agree its about making money and showing a profit. Which is what the girls team did tonight, hence AS being impressed.

Well in terms of repeating business, good reputation is important as well, that said both teams were pretty poor in terms of quality and obviously yasmina managed ot steer the team muh better, have to agree she is one of the better PMs in that she managed to keep total control over her team.

I guess you're a friend judging by the enthusiasm?

Yasmina was definitely better than Rocky and his team, but that's not saying much. She passedTHIS task competently enough, but the cost of that may be too high. She was lucky to deal with someone generous enough to offer average payment for a substandard service. By skimping on decent ingredients, providing food with hair instead of proper fillings, she's demolished any reputation as a quality restaurateur - I certainly wouldn't want to dine anywhere she catered. After the fiasco we just witnessed, who would?

Who's Business Brian? Is he the guy that dropped out?

I have never heard of the word 'shrud'. You say it like it's a good thing, but it sounds like an insult.

Not everyone can spell 'shrewd'.

Also having problems with 'bruschetta'

I agree that Yasmina's 'keep costs super low' strategy worked really well in the context of the show, but I wouldn't want her catering anything for me. Everything she made looked cheap and nasty. That said, she won't be making 'flatbread' for Suralan, so who cares?

I think he's a friend of Jack Cleary on the Big Brother forum.

Exactly. The candidates often make the error of thinking it is about having excellence in whichever skill area the task is based, whereas the only skills which matter to AS are business skills. He isn't looking for a chef, a film director, a cleaner or whatever, but for a project manager who turns in a tidy profit.

Yes and no. Although the point was to keep costs down and make a profit. They both got money deducted for being crap and having crap food.

Even the girls got deducted what £200 or so? They could have spent that on better food. £200 extra costs, £200 extra income. Same profit but better job. Spend £100 extra on food, and you make £100 extra if no money was deducted.

In business it's all about repeat custom. I doubt if Yasmina's clients would have rehired her after that night, therefore although they won the task they lose in the long term, she would soon run out of new customers.

That is the one flaw in the Apprentice, the win at any cost mentality doesn't help, should be a two part contest, one who makes profits, and who would be asked back by the client, at least it would make the teams think.

Contrary to popular belief , the Apprentice is not a "business show" , it's a gameshow so none of this "repeat clientele" actually really mattered in the first place , it's all about the winning.

Yes but the thing is all the contestants probably know and realise what you just mentioned about "losing in the long term" If they had to do that task every week, throughout the rest of the series, I'm sure Yasmina would have taken on a different strategy, and would have been less ruthless.

However, she knows, in the case of the apprentice, it is purley about making more money than the boys team on one task, one time. That's why the apprentice only incoroporates small aspects of the business world.

The girls team did extremley well and Yasmina has gone up in my expectations

Everyone knew that someone would be fired from the team that made the least money, Yasmina was more aware of this than Rocky hence the cost cutting. If the task was spread over a week or month or whatever then repeat business would have been a factor.

It's a bit like is SCD a dance contest or entertainment show . I get your point and agree with you somewhat, also it's very entertaining to watch them muddle through. But it would be nice to have a little nod in the direction of forward business planning.

I agree with you , but I think ever since it's move to BBC1 I don't think I've seen one instance of that, or any impressive business skill for that matter!

She might have been a winner last night but has she thought up her long term prospects? The quality of her 'food' was horrendous and messy, if she doesn't win the whole thing her reputation as a restaurateur will be in shreds.

And who can secure a costumer base... What's the use of turning a one-off tidy profit if they won't have you back next time because you are associated with poor quality?

As a restauranteur I think she displayed great skills in organisation, costing and planning. Obviously the food she produced for the challenge was of poor quality, but michellin stars wasn't the name of the game, it was about throwing food down city worker's necks and making the most profit by hook or by crook.

Obviously working in an established restaurant environment, she would have different margins to work with, as well as a long term business strategy. The task was essentially a 1 day catering company, who cares if they didn't produce the best quality food, she got what was required from the task and ran with it.

I can't believe that the boys made the mistake as the girls last week.

Going VASTLY over budget. Do they not learn?

The difference being that for this task , no long term prospects needed to be looked so why try and incorporate that into your plan? As I said , it's a game not a genuine test of business acumen.

It's a problem with the format of the show.

If one team made £10 more than the other (by pure fluke) but the task was a complete debacle and the customer(s) would never use them again whereas their competitors ran a very smooth operation with customers that would reuse them the format would nevertheless force Siralan to sack one of the better team.

We've seen this in previous series.

The teams differ by only the smallest of margins and he tells one team 'Well done' and sends them off on a jolly and treats the other as if they were a bunch of worthless dimwits.

To anyone with any real business sense it would make Siralan look a complete muppet except for the fact that we know it's all for the benefit of the cameras. (Plus he hasn't seen as much as we have).

I agree Tern, the tasks are flawed from the outset.

I thought Yasmina was lucky that the companies offered her such a generous payment for such substandard food - it looked barely edible. I suspect IRL a company would refuse to pay point blank, on the basis it had made their evening look completely cr*p.

SAS did say several times that they were catering for highflyers who expected great food etc, and she certainly didn't deliver on that score. As another poster said, if she had spent more on the food she would not have been out of pocket as she would not have had the cash deducted from the total, so from that point of view it was not the greatest business decision.

The thing is , I don't understand the fuss regarding Yasmina and the fact that she wouldn't be rehired being used as a way to say her team should've lost . People are forgetting that the boys had more deducted from their agreed total and the organiser even apologised to the guests because he was embarrased by them and so they wouldn't be rehired either. And this task wasn't just a narrow win , the girls made 200% profit whereas the boys made a loss , even if Yasmina never got hired by that company she actually did make money whereas the boys ended up in the red.

Yasmina was, as mentioned, lucky. Her food was widely condemned as poor, very cheap. She won because the other team was worse, not because she delivered a quality product. It's doubtful Yasmina can repeat that approach and keep winning. Having said that, she does strike me as a Ruth Badger type candidate - very ambitious, very direct 'no nonsense' approach - I think the best Apprentice candidates think in a very direct rational way. I wouldn't be surprised if she makes it to the final but you never know, The Apprentice is an unpredictable show. Without wishing to be sexist, deep down I think Sugar prefers hiring men rather than women. Just the feeling I get.