The Apprentice - Reflection Paper

I. Summary/ Synopsis of the Film

Selling flowers in the streetsThe show is basically a two-week interview turned reality show that pits 14 individuals against each other to find the apprentice for one of UKs business tycoon Mr. Alan Sugar. The battle in the first week was divided between two groups, men vs. women. The task was simply selling flowers in the streets. Each team was given 500 pounds to start and whichever team ended up with the higher Net Income at the end of the day would win.

II. Assessment of the Two Teams

MaleThe boys team was headed by Timothy Campbell, and decided on the name Impact. The overall strategy of the team was to focus on door to door in the many residences of London. Timothy proved himself to be an effective team leader as he was able to gain the respect of his team as well being able to handle the stress of leading 6 egocentric gentlemen. He was calm throughout the task and was able to make good decisions consistently during the day. The boys were quick in purchasing their items and faced less pressure in the initial task as compared to the other team. Their selling tactics were different only in the first few hours. They focused on selling door to door and were able to get rid of a number of flowers. One of the strengths of the team would be that they had a better arsenal of salesman. The boys also picked better locations in the many districts of London, which garnered them higher sales. They also targeted the higher class and were able to sell some of the flowers at a higher price. The only critique I saw on the side of the boys was their decision on the last location, the subway station. They though that a huge number of people would be passing by and bigger foot traffic would result in higher sales, but the idea backfired and in they realized that at the end of the working day people only wanted to get home and rest. No one wanted to buy their product and they had to sell them at below cost just to get rid of their stocks.

FemaleThe strategy of the girls started of unstable, during the purchasing task they decided to start purchase in the last 5 minutes and allotted the rest to interviewing and researching/ knowing more about the product. They failed to understand how short 5 minutes can be when you are pressured and under strict time. When the last 5 minutes came everyone fell under the pressure and it caused a significant level of stress resulting to demotivation and quarrel among the ladies. I do believe they were also not able to purchase all the things that they wanted to since they ran out of time.

The selling strategy of the women in my opinion wasnt bad. The idea of setting up a stall was good since they could attract the passing customers. The only problem was the location, location is the most important thing when you are setting up shop. And they built their stand at an area where people werent interested in buying flowers and there was a lack of foot traffic. This strategy consumed 2 hours of their time and resulted to a sale of close to nothing. This made the team very agitated and ended with arguments within the team. One of the team member even sold products at cost just to get rid of stock as she fell into panic and though they wouldnt be able to clear stock at the pace that they were selling. They moved to another location to sell on a one to one basis. They were able to sell most of their flowers through this process but the team did not have as good of a salesman as the other team had. They ended up selling most of the flowers at a lower price than they wanted to. But the day ended quite decently as they were able to sold out their stocks by the time the task ended.

III. Character AssessmentTim CampbellTim was the project manager of the boys team. I perceived him to be a good leader as he was able to lead the team to victory with the decisions that he made. I noticed how he was a good listener and was open to the ideas of his team. He also knew how to handle men who were well experienced and were in a way very egotistic. He was able to maximize the strengths of his team and made good results out of it.

Saira KhanI believe Saira is also a good leader but the problem that I had with her would be her tendency to shut off ideas from her team. She would insist on her beliefs and ideas and how the team should do this and that. She was not able to handle the conflict that occurred in the tasks as well as I though she could. A good attribute that she has is that she leads from the front and I could see the extra effort that she puts in in the hopes of winning the task. Her selling tasks was also notable horrible to see, but was effective in terms of making the sell. At the end she was able to retain a spot in the contest and would have another chance to prove herself.

Miranda RoseMiranda was one of the nominees that was nominated to be fired, her spotlight moment would be that part where she had panicked when the sales of the team were slow and ended up selling products at cost price. This left a terrible impression on sir Alan and was truly a wring move to make. I think she made a terrible choice in losing composure so early in the tasks and those flowers that were sold at cost could have been sold at another location and bring them closer to the sales of the other team. She was also notable one of the better saleslady of the team and garnered a huge share of sales.

Adenike OgundoyinAdenike was the one who was fired in the first episode. She had ideas that she though would be profitable bu the project manager overruled them basically and throughout the task she kept on insisting on these ideas. I think that though her ideas were not bad, she should focus more on helping her team sell rather than waste the energy on arguing over matters that would only result in conflict. I believed that she couldve saved her spot if only she defended herself better in the war room as she was a good team player nonetheless and was able to make good sales.

IV. ReactionThe apprentice is a familiar series to me personally as I have watch a season of Apprentice Asia where we also had a Filipino representative Jonathan who won. The apprentice is a good introductory series in the life of a project manager for us students as it gives us a perspective on the elements that we have to deal with when we leave college. Project management is everywhere whether it be business or not. And in my opinion whats great about the series is picking up lessons or insights from these films and more importantly, applying these lessons in real life. Watching the show is fun but at the same time we can apply the things we learn from the show in real life and make ourselves better leaders at the same time, its a win-win situation!