In which case, perhaps raef is well out of it....he has too much class for the show I think...there will be plenty of good opportunity's for him anyways.

Just sad that the show has lost it's main attraction really....

So the OP and several others would have fired someone like Claire, for the simple reasons that -

a. You obviously don't like her, to be insulting her without knowing her.
b. Did not actually do anything wrong in this task, if anything she did brilliantly.
c. She can 'spit 500 rounds a second, like an AK-47'; yet she is still able to give a presentation that impressed the advertising agency execs.
d. Poor Raef was fired before her.

Michael on the other hand, has no defense what so ever and should have been fired. There was only one idiot in that boardroom and it wasn't SAS.

In reality this has been the case with every series since the magnificent series 1.....it really is just a ratings game now.

It's been heading that way slowly, but this year it took a giant leap in that direction. Sad really...

What do you think it is, bladdy BBC4? It's bums on seats that counts.

Lol...but as BB show's, you can only push it so far before people lose interest.

It's nowhere near that yet. Not only have they got the viewing figures, they have got the press coverage and people talking about it the next day - it's must see television for a lot of people.

BB or The Apprentice, cause BB has been suffering a big decline the last teo or three series.

But yes, with The Apprentice, at the moment ratings are higher than ever, but there is always the risk the show has reached it's peek this series, much like BB did around series 5.

Terrible decision and have a horrible feeling that Michael is going to be the teflon man who goes on to win as no matter how badly he performs or behaves (bribery, lies) SAS overlooks it.

After the frankly bizarre choices for winner of the last 2 years - Michelle who lasted all of 2 minutes in his organisation and Simon who Kristina wiped the floor with another bum decision this year will lose all credibility for SAS on this show. His trusted allies Margaret and Nick seemed to have sussed the contestants but SAS seems to get blinded by loyalty to the wrong people.

Apart from Nick called Raef wrong on two occasions this series.

Don't you think he may have fired Raef because it might be the only chance he'll get before the final? No one brings him into the boardroom as he's too nice.

If Sir Alan has decided he's all mouth and no trousers then he might as well get rid now. After all, he'll get plenty of chance to get rid of Michael as he's there every time his team loses. Plus I think he may genuinly want to see the little shit ripped apart in the interviews (please, God, let Paul Kemsley have come back from America for it).

In fairness, Reaf hasn't actually done a lot of tangible things in most of the tasks. That said he's done very little wrong, and I thought he was a shoe-in for the final two.

I'm sure Sir Alan now has a fair idea who he wants to get to the interview stage, and his main priority is to engineer that happening. As we don't know what strategy is required to achieve that, some decisions may look stupid.

If he definitely doesn't want to employ Raef, then it's a waste of an interview, I suppose.

I beg to differ....he has contributed plenty towards winning many of the tasks, although that has been covered elsewhere so I won't post it again!

I do think SAS had decided he didn't want Raef to win though, he has his own idea of who he wants working for him and clearly that is not Raef, so I agree with you to that extent!

Sorry, i forgot to add that maybe that's why Sir Alan made him project manager: to see what he was really made of. So this week was make or break for Raef.

After all, Simon managed a significant part of the laundry task (the actual making-it-happen part); he was part of the sales team that cocked up the ice cream task; he mislabelled the fish; sold bugger all wedding kit; was relatively anonymous in the restaurant & photo tasks.

He's never done that badly, but perhaps Sir Alan thought he was just keeping his head down.

But Raef excelled as PM during the laundry task? He was arguably the best PM of the series that week....

Would he have been if Simon hadn't been there though? He didn't seem to actually have an idea what was going on in the laundry itself, and procrastinated when Simon told them that they needed them back to help NOW! If Simon had been cocking up that part of it, Raef wouldn't have known and the task would have been cocked up.

A good PM would have been at the laundry not out selling, as that's where the operation was based, and most likely to fail. Ironically exactly what Simon got wrong in the photography task.

I think Raef and Simon worked well together, would have liked to have seen them on the same team more actually, but I think you have to remember Raef successfully took a team that was at each others throats the prior week and got them working together as a team. He also had the right strategy in terms of focusing on the bigger deals rather than the odds and ends approach of the girls.

He recognised that his skills were best used out getting the sales, that is his strength after all, and once the sales were secured he went back and mucked in with everyone, and the success of the task proved he was right to do so.

Being a good PM is as much about how you go about delegating the roles as anything and he rightly recognised that Simon would be the ideal person to oversee the laundry operation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Love Bear View Post
Hmm. Bloody rich idiot though, isn't he?


Sralan has mega-millions through his performance in business.

You don't get on in business, let alone big business (try it ), by being an "idiot" or a poor judge of someone's acumen. I agree that this show is "tellied up" but the basic tenets apply to good business practice.

I, too, was surprised that Raef went, specifically because (I agree with Muttley) his performance as PM in the "shirts" task was one of the best so far.

We have to accept that (as covered above) SAS just couldn't visualise Raef working with him...

Dave

We do have to accept it...but we don't have to like it though!!!!

How much about big business do we like?

Long hours, back-stabbing, kissing up, stress...

I just like watching others get stressed, licking ass etc but would hate it for me.

Back stabbing goes on in every workplace, not just business so we are all used to that and I can take it with a pinch of salt

That isn't true though, and I say that as someone who spent 6 years as an Operations Manager, and the same again as a Systems Analyst.

Managing projects is predominently about information flow and managing processes. The flow from sales to the laundry is easy: they phone up with each order, and no calls means no order. The flow from the other way is more difficult, as status involves analysing the rates the various tasks are being performed at, and constantly recalculating finishing times as new orders come in.

Raef may well have been the best salesperson, but you can't do that and manage the project. If he really couldn't be replaced on the sales side - which didn't seem the case based on the wedding task - he had to cede control of the project to someone else, which would have got him sacked anyway, as Sir Alan doesn't just want salespeople.

Because no one managed the project they relied on luck. For example when Simon thought they wouldn't get it all done, the PM should have decided whether to just concentrate on the big order, or to do all the small orders first in decending order of value.

If someone had been timing how long each task took, you could work out the order in which to perform the tasks to reduce the risk of failure to a minimum.

Raef is great with people but rubbish at managing projects. Him & Michael did the adverts because they had acting experience. Claire's a brand manager. Anyone who's watched the previous series knows it's about brand not art. And anyone who hasn't should be fired for not doing basic research.

No, Raef lacks what Lucinda has in spades, and vice versa. If they had a child together it'd be favourite for The Apprentice 30.

I seem to recall Simon, Alex, Lee and Ian working their arses off in the laundry and Raef, Kevin and Michael sitting a cafe drinking lattes

that task was won by Simon's organisation and the girl's hilarious pricing strategy (nice one Jenny!)

You never saw them sitting in a cafe sipping lattes. There was a shot of them buying coffee on the way back to the laundry. It was a moment that was put in by the production crew for a moment of levity in the show. Furthermore, those working in the laundry were seen taking short breaks themselves. It works both ways.

Raef got a lot of things spot on in that task.

Unlikely - they were on different teams. Alex was selling cheap wedding dresses, she was selling expensive ones.

after this week its clear hes keeping the people who he knows will cause fireworks come the last few episodes.