Hello candidates and welcome to the boardroom!

How are you currently feeling about this task and the impending results?

Good evening, Lord Sugar!

It has been a really good couple of days actually. I have really enjoyed this task, and I really hope that we've won.

Hello Lord Sugar.

I am feeling pretty fine at the moment about how we performed in this task but i am super anxious to hear the results tonight.

I think both teams did really well this task. I feel really strongly positive about our idea and location. We feel we've been creative as well as been as feasible with everything as possible. So I think we have done well. But I am a bundle of nerves about results as usual.

I'm feeling a bit apprehensive but I think we have a great concept, put in a lot of hard work and stand a good chance of the win though I don't want to curse it at all. I think Aptitude have done a good job though so I'll be interested to see which way it goes.

Starting with Inspired, George was your project manager, George how did you feel you run as PM went? Do you think you improved as project manager this time round?

For the rest of the team, what did you think of George as PM?

I think I definitely improved on last time. Last time, my team were pretty positive about me, so I knew that my leadership skills weren't an issue, what went wrong was the decisions that I made. I really wanted to show you that I can do better than that, so this time I made sure not to jump to any decisions, I made sure that we had a lot of options for everything and I carefully weighed everything up before choosing anything. I think I worked really well with Iain and Roxie, and I am really, really proud of what we have come up with, which is more than can be said for the last time I managed.

I liked George as PM - there were a couple of issues with delegation but we had them all sorted out in the end and a few problems with our pitch in that we did not see everything until the last day which is cutting a bit close. But on the whole George was really supportive and a great team member to have. It was great how we were bouncing ideas off of each other once again and I think George was effective in making the most of that. We came up with quite a few ideas, so brainstorming sessions were quite productive.

I can't comment on his first run but I thought he did a great job managing Roxie and myself this task and was willing to make tough decisions when needed. He's been a strong candidate every time I have worked with him and I think he has learnt a lot from his past mistakes.

For Aptitude, Shadi isn't here, but for Naruto - what are your honest views on your performance as project manager? How do you think it compared to your first time in doing it?

The first time I did it, it was for the 'search' task so I don't think the full extent of my PM skills were shown. This time I do think, between the two of us, that it was organised, and everything was delegated efficiently. When I saw there would probably be time constraints, I managed to fix this by shuffling the delegations around so we managed to have a final pitch which i was proud of. I did lead, and also made sure we both knew what we were doing at all times.

Okay, moving on to the task then.

You both chose interesting and imaginative concepts for your theme park, what was the main inspiration behind these ideas? What kind of things did you take into account when coming up with the concepts?

We really came down to two concepts. We had a few ideas about where our location was going to be, but the one that we all seemed the most passionate about was India, and as Roxie is Indian we knew that in going for that we'd have an advantage, as she could tell us what would work and what wouldn't with Indian customers. Our two ideas were the science-based one and one about Indian culture generally - food, history, culture, Bollywood etc. In the market research, it was very, very close, but everyone who preferred the culture one admitted that there were risks involved with it, and we felt that science was a safer bet. Iain in particular was very keen on going with the science theme. So it was a difficult decision, but that was the one that we went for.

EDIT: Just realised I didn't really talk about our inspirations! Science is a very big thing in India, with a lot of people wanting to go into it for a career. Also I think Iain (who came up with it) had some ideas about how we could fit theme park attractions around that concept, and we knew that it was original, and could be popular.

The main inspiration for Four Nature is the endless scope it has and the fact that, from the outside it would look like four different worlds combined to create a theme park, with people able to experience all four worlds.

We took into account the actual nature of the elements and managed to convey the nature in the rides and look of each section -for example fire being dangerous and unsafe making it the more adult orientated section. We also took into account, the fact it would appeal to all ages and able to give so many different experiences in the one park e.g. water park, roller coasters, arcade.

We chose to focus on a location and then build a theme around it. The location was chosen based off Delhi's population demographics which suit our theme park well - Delhi being 50% below the age of 24 and the second most populous city in the world meaning we had a huge demographic to take advantage of. As well as that it's one of the biggest tourist hotspots in Central, South and Eastern Asia - with over 22 million annual tourists. So in terms of both foreign and domestic consumers they are in abundance.

For our concept, we had two main ideas and that was a science idea which Iain was responsible for making - I added bits saying we should take advantage of India's endemic wild life like the peacock for instance and that India in particular would be a good location for a science based theme. The other main idea was my idea for a culturally based theme park exploring rides about food, festivals, Bollywood etc. and this would be a good idea because it lends itself to tourism quite well and would be very innovative. Market research and both Iain and surprisingly myself did swing more to the science idea.

My argument for choosing the science park over my cultural idea was primarily what would be more universally appealing, you could do more with it in terms of rides and India in particular would be a great location to do it. There were issues that the culturally based idea would not be appealing enough to domestic consumers who for them the culture would be a part of their everyday lives so it may have been slightly restrictive, as well as the fact that blasphemy laws are quite tight in India and festivals/other cultural things may conflict with various ideologies.

Aptitude, on the other hand, a potential criticism was that there was maybe too many big rides in your theme park which may leave customers overwhelmed and would increase production costs. Thoughts?

The science idea was mine and it came from my scientific background and having a vision of what such a themed park might look like. I think the combination of the two and seeing smaller scale ideas in existing theme parks was where the inspiration came from. We considered how risky each of our ideas was as George mentioned and I think on balance it was considered to be better to stick with the safer option based on our market research. I was perhaps a bit more against the idea because some of what was pitched originally conflicted with my beliefs and I didn't feel comfortable with the idea because of that. But I think George handled it well and would have gone with the Indian culture idea had the research been a bit more positive and less cautionary.

I think one of the advantages of our idea is our pricing scheme which covers a lot of situations, long queues being one of them. A fast track ticket is available which would bypass such queues and therefore would be a good way of generating revenue and profit like they do at many other theme parks.

In terms of big, fast-paced rides which would appeal to the younger demographic we do various others such as the Peacock and the Digestive System rides which are fast-paced and would be relatively large. They would put a lot less emphasis on learning and science but on more of the thrill. And we would have a few more of such rides located throughout the park so it would not be all focused at the one attraction. Obviously Bohr may be the one that gets people talking like Colossus is at Thorpe Park but we would have many other rides which would be similarly thrilling like the Peacock and Digestive System rides.

Personally I think we have a good selection of high energy rides as well as family-friendly ones which would appeal best to the two demographics we are targeting which are younger demographics like teenagers and young adults and families respectively.

I think it could turn to be an advantage since it would reduce waiting times and ensure the teenagers and adults would be catered for, since they do tend to be a significant proportion of the target market - groups of adults, teenagers or friends along with families. Production costs would be increased but if it was too big of an issue, some of the coasters could be held on standby, until we had generated enough interest, while keeping the ones which would be more popular.

I think Bohr definitely is the ride which will be the most notable and will be used on our marketing campaigns, in much the same way as many theme parks have a certain attraction that is used in that way. However, I don't think that it is the only thing that would get customers in. I think our feature on Star Trek will be huge, for example, as will our other sci fi things. We tried to come up with a lot of ideas which would be great fun for children and adults alike, all in-keeping with our theme. Also, I must reinforce that we will have other rides besides the ones that we pitched. This is just a small sample of the attractions that we will be offering.

In response to your comments about queue waiting times, I will accept that the queues for this attraction will probably be quite long, but that is just a natural part of a theme park which not a huge amount can be done about. We do have the fast-track tickets for people who don't want to stand in line, and as I said, I think that the quality of our other attractions is good enough that people are not going to spend their entire time waiting for Bohr.

The conical flask ride in particular was in my mind as a 'big ride' along with the 'Bohr' so I am a little surprised by these concerns - I imagined it to be a fairly fast but at the same time realistic ride. We also really wanted to emphasis the family friendly aspect in our pitch so wanted to make sure we had a good number of child friendly rides. It should also be pointed out that this is just a selection of rides that would be included and others would be developed to add to what was already mentioned.

As I followed both teams, I wrote a brief summary of my thoughts on both teams, for Niall, the candidates and the viewers to get an insight.

Team Inspired:
Okay so Team Inspired were a mixed bag. Firstly, although George was the PM, I think at times it would be really easy for me to have thought Roxie was the PM. At times I definitely feel like she railroaded decisions and can be very persuasive, a good and bad thing. Iain was competent throughout, as were the others.

As for the concept and the idea… A theme park in New Delhi, India. Starting with location, I don’t buy this ‘India is a tourist hotspot’ that Roxie in particular seems to believe. Maybe down to personal preference, or maybe just down to the fact that my only personal experience with somebody going to India (to New Delhi in fact) was them getting seriously ill on the water over there and being hospitalised. If we ignore that, it’s still just a really random place and where it gets worse is that I just don’t see the appeal of a science theme park. Like, okay, cool? Well, not really. Theme parks are meant to fun and stuff and an enjoyable time for visitors but … it just leaves a lot to be desired really.

On to the park itself, the rides are also something I’m not overly fond of… There’s one ‘big’ ride, the one in the centre, right? But a park can’t survive with just one major ride because the queues would be intolerable, especially in somewhere like New Delhi where a large proportion of the reasoning was a high population density. There’ll be lots of visitors, but not many ‘big’ rides which just causes mayhem and gives the ‘big’ ride the longest queue ever…

Overall, not great and George’s reasoning behind forcing himself to do the ‘graphical work’ (the layout) isn’t great either as it’s pretty basic and it doesn’t even matter that it isn’t an artistic masterpiece. Just the flow of the layout is really bad, toilets in one corner of the park?

Team Aptitude:
So a VERY different approach to the task. I really love the theme and I think the way you went about designing the rides and the park is a lot better. The idea is a lot less creative in my opinion with just choosing the UK but I actually think it’s a lot more of a realistic concept and something that is actually interesting to me. Something I can visualise on like Rollercoaster Tycoon (a game that I spent many nights of my childhood on!!).

Naruto was a great PM and him and Shadi, although not as active and talkative as Team Inspired, actually bounce off eachother quite well. You both have a lot of passion and drive and Naruto in particular showed a lot of resilience throughout the task when it came to decision making and discussions.

Overall, it’s not perfect, but I think it was a job well done. There’s definitely room for improvement though as I don’t think your pitch is as strong as the other teams in particular and although your product is better, I think it lacks an originality that the other team has shown.

Okay, moving on to the locations. Inspired, India was definitely out there as a choice of location. Realistically, do you think there'd be problems with the location you've chosen? How would you try and refute those?