DS Forums

 
 

Week Twelve: Who Should Have Won?


View Poll Results: Who Should Have Won?
Alana 106 79.70%
Courtney 27 20.30%
Voters: 133. You can't vote on this poll right now - are you signed in?

Reply
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 18-12-2016, 21:55
P_P
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Wales
Posts: 1,197

Poll up soon.

Alana's idea was strongest for me and I felt she was the stronger candidate. Courtney could be on to something though, but I'm unsure how much life there is in the novelty gift sector.
P_P is offline   Reply With Quote
Please sign in or register to remove this advertisement.
Old 18-12-2016, 22:15
BigDaveX
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 752
Alana, no question of it. Courtney did better than I thought he would, but Alana was simply in a whole different league; one of the best-ever final performances, IMO.
BigDaveX is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18-12-2016, 22:18
spkx
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 14,185
Neither were particularly innovative.

Alana's business is just a bog standard bakery and she didn't seem to offer anything unique, especially when admitting her 'homemade by alana' cakes would be outsourced.

Courtney's novelty gift website was similarly uninspired and is just a copy of firebox, not on the high street, I want one of those, red5, etc.

I'd have gone with Alana simply because of cakes.
spkx is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18-12-2016, 22:20
pugamo
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 17,242
Alana is obsessed with profit margins, Courtney actually knows about business. I think Lord Sugar made a big mistake actually. Alana will have no loyalty to him and I thought her attitude to Courtney was quite shocking, interrupting him and having a go when he was making his final plea to Lord Sugar.

You'd have to be mad to buy her bakes at £3 when she has admitted she makes them for 18p!
pugamo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18-12-2016, 22:23
cooler
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 11,175
Alana is obsessed with profit margins, Courtney actually knows about business. I think Lord Sugar made a big mistake actually. Alana will have no loyalty to him and I thought her attitude to Courtney was quite shocking, interrupting him and having a go when he was making his final plea to Lord Sugar.

You'd have to be mad to buy her bakes at £3 when she has admitted she makes them for 18p!
Either mad or ridiculously rich.
cooler is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18-12-2016, 22:24
Arthur_B
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 2,764
Alana is obsessed with profit margins, Courtney actually knows about business. I think Lord Sugar made a big mistake actually. Alana will have no loyalty to him and I thought her attitude to Courtney was quite shocking, interrupting him and having a go when he was making his final plea to Lord Sugar.

You'd have to be mad to buy her bakes at £3 when she has admitted she makes them for 18p!
She only slated his business after he slagged her off first, saying she wasn't a proper business woman. That was what was disrespectful.
Arthur_B is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18-12-2016, 23:21
Apple22over7
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Around and about
Posts: 689
She only slated his business after he slagged her off first, saying she wasn't a proper business woman. That was what was disrespectful.
Exactly. And Alana only slated his *business*, not hum personally. His "not a proper businesswoman" was a personal attack and very uncalled for.
Apple22over7 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18-12-2016, 23:29
POTD
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 554
Both businesses to me were very similar, neither stood out like some of the previous winners

Both have problems with scalability. Selling cakes to events and local markets is a nice small business. Turning it into something bigger is much harder, when what she does is nothing original
POTD is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18-12-2016, 23:44
francie
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 20,671
She only slated his business after he slagged her off first, saying she wasn't a proper business woman. That was what was disrespectful.
Totally.
francie is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18-12-2016, 23:47
natalian
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Posts: 2,589
Both businesses to me were very similar, neither stood out like some of the previous winners

Both have problems with scalability. Selling cakes to events and local markets is a nice small business. Turning it into something bigger is much harder, when what she does is nothing original
Have any of the winners been truly 'original' though? Last year was a carbon copy of 'Pimlico Plumbers', for example.

There is nothing wrong with a tried and tested market. Krispy Kreme. Lola's Cupcakes etc all found a place in the market and there is no reason why Ridiculously Rich can't do the same with the right products and the right marketing.
natalian is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18-12-2016, 23:50
ShotDownInFlame
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2015
Location: Kingston Upon Thames
Posts: 1,862
Alana all the way.

Both candidates put themselves firmly in markets that are already overly saturated but the key difference is Alana actually:
a) has had good business acumen across most of the tasks this series
b) Thanks to Oliver of all people actually perfected her brand really quickly allowing for solid brand recognition.

She absolutely deserved to win and her quick spat with Courtney was deserved after he called her "a baker not a businesswoman" which was totally uncalled for.

Courtney is in my mind not only the worst finalist The Apprentice has ever had but also one of the least interesting candidates ever. Even now in the final he let Jessica/Kartick do most of the work. He just seemed to coast by and while I do appreciate that brief clip of him getting coaching for his pitches to make him seem more sympathetic, it still doesn't make him any less useless, and the sympathy went out the window the minute he slated Alana, prize pillock.
ShotDownInFlame is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 00:24
Luxray
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 9,497
Alana, I've never been so happy for a contestant to win.

In my opinion Courtney is the worst contestant to EVER get to the final two (though admittedly he did better than I thought he would on the actual episode, but I'm talking overall).
Luxray is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 02:54
via_487
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 1,193
Alana.
I am so pleased that she won. I've been wanting her to win for weeks, but it was still a really pleasant surprise when she did!
via_487 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 03:19
SULLA
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Black Country lad in Yorkshire
Posts: 118,027
It was clear to me that Sugar liked her
SULLA is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 06:25
thenetworkbabe
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 34,216
She only slated his business after he slagged her off first, saying she wasn't a proper business woman. That was what was disrespectful.
And Alana's counterattack was the most effective since Zara destroyed James - when he claimed he had the best economics results in NI's exam - Zara didn't even bother to point out her GCSE results were better.......
thenetworkbabe is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 07:00
lammtarra
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 900
Courtney mentioned in the boardroom that he'd had a large order he'd had to decline because he could not afford the set-up costs. I'm surprised more was not made of that. Taken together with being stocked in Paperchase, it does suggest Courtney's designs might have a future.
lammtarra is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 07:31
sorcha_healy27
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 68,909
Alana is obsessed with profit margins, Courtney actually knows about business. I think Lord Sugar made a big mistake actually. Alana will have no loyalty to him and I thought her attitude to Courtney was quite shocking, interrupting him and having a go when he was making his final plea to Lord Sugar.

You'd have to be mad to buy her bakes at £3 when she has admitted she makes them for 18p!
What; a business woman being interested in profit margins- Utter madness.
sorcha_healy27 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 07:31
davejc64
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 3,981
It could be argued that the result was contrived due to BBC losing Bake Off to CH4.

Does this mean that Lord Sugar will become the next Mr Kipling?
davejc64 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 09:18
tim123
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 381
Poll up soon.

Alana's idea was strongest for me and I felt she was the stronger candidate. Courtney could be on to something though, but I'm unsure how much life there is in the novelty gift sector.
The novelty gift sector just goes on and on

it's the products and the method of distribution that changes
tim123 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 10:30
Galaxy266
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 4,763
Courtney was only ever placed in the final so that Alana could win!
Galaxy266 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 10:40
Cats_Eyes
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 2,546
Courtney was only ever placed in the final so that Alana could win!
But she would have won regardless because she had already beaten all the rest before so I don't follow that logic !
Cats_Eyes is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 11:43
Galaxy266
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 4,763
But she would have won regardless because she had already beaten all the rest before so I don't follow that logic !
So if the final had been Alana vs Grainne do you think it would have been a closer and/or different contest to Alana vs Courtney, then?

Courtney was a fairly weak candidate, so putting him up against Alana in the final gave Lord Sugar the result he wanted, and he knew this.
Galaxy266 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 11:49
Cats_Eyes
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 2,546
So if the final had been Alana vs Grainne do you think it would have been a closer and/or different contest to Alana vs Courtney, then?

Courtney was a fairly weak candidate, so putting him up against Alana in the final gave Lord Sugar the result he wanted, and he knew this.
I think that Alana would have won regardless for the reasons I said before
Cats_Eyes is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 12:05
Mr_X_123
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 1,786
Always amazes me coming on here to see how few people grasp basic business principles.

Grainne, as well as being useless, didn't have anything close to an investable proposition. Nor did she have any particular skill that LS might want to "buy" even if her business was not viable. If you are an amazing designer, even if business wise you aren't great it might be worth LS buying "you". Grainne had nothing. And wasn't very bright.

Alana had the only business that might become worth £250K plus....
Mr_X_123 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19-12-2016, 12:24
thefairydandy
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 2,841

Courtney is in my mind not only the worst finalist The Apprentice has ever had but also one of the least interesting candidates ever. Even now in the final he let Jessica/Kartick do most of the work. He just seemed to coast by and while I do appreciate that brief clip of him getting coaching for his pitches to make him seem more sympathetic, it still doesn't make him any less useless, and the sympathy went out the window the minute he slated Alana, prize pillock.
I get the impression that Courtney, like a lot of the candidates, will be very good at running a business out of his bedroom, where you don't have to impress a lot of people and are only answerable to yourself at the end of the day.

It takes something very different to go further than that and secure external investment.

I think it would be fair enough to call him a designer, not a businessman!
thefairydandy is offline   Reply With Quote
 
Reply



Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 06:04.