The Apprentice vs Dragon's Den: Which Show offers more Business Lessons?

The Apprentice is an entertaining, adrenaline fuelled fight to find a business partner for Lord Sugar. Dragons' Den is effectively a pitching contest where budding entrepreneurs try to entice successful investors into funding and supporting their business endeavours. Both are ratings winners, both are entertaining but which one enriches viewers with the most Business knowledge?

For me Dragons' Den wins this one. The five Dragons dish out plenty of advice as they dissect, interrogate and mercilessly grill potential business partners with rigorous analysis and precise business acumen. Viewers are treated to a master-class in negotiation where the percentage of equity on offer for a given amount of investment is haggled over,sometimes to the last 1%. After watching a few series you get a feel for what is a good idea and what is a waste of time. The importance of knowing your numbers and being able to quote profit, loss, turnover and margins at will, are championed and promoted as an essential skill by the Dragons. The achievements of Peter Jones, Duncan Bannatyne, Debroah Meaden, Theo Paphitis and James Cann (who is now to be replaced by Hillary Devey) are inspiring and educational to watchers, many of whom have aspired to running their own concerns but have never had decent role models to learn from.



Dragons' Den may win the educational battle but The Apprentice wins the entertainment battle. Followers young and old love to point out the failures of candidates and suggest better ways of doing things while watching the show. The 'You're Fired' moment is as exciting as any cliff hanger from the soap operas of the day and offers a fine conclusion to the day's business lesson. No viewer can say that they have never picked up some business pointers from Lord Sugar, who never misses a chance to emphasise the importance of common sense and lateral thinking in making any business decisions.

Both Shows are great and are playing their part in encouraging entrepreneurs of the past,present and future.

Talking Point: Does 'The Apprentice' TV Show serve predominantly as an entertainment show or a business tutorial?

Having watched many episodes of the Apprentice over the years, I have often pondered this question. The easy answer is that 'The Apprentice' serves as both an entertainment form and as a business education tool. Often people berate the business merits of the show, as many of the contestants are often seemingly  lacking in any obvious business nous or basic common sense! Personally I think that the pearls of business wisdom come at the very end of the show when Lord Sugar, Karen Brady and Nick Hewer mull over the actions of the candidates on their various tasks and evaluate the successes and failures of both teams. There is no doubt that all the tasks set before the competitors require mastery of at least one form of business skill.  A few weeks back the Candidates were asked to purchase a list of obscure items for the cheapest possible price. Viewers were able to note the importance of negotiation in a business setting, where buying at the lowest price is advantageous with regard to sustaining profit margins. The candidates employed a wide set of negotiation techniques including the use of charm, the use of directness and the use of starting low to ensure they settled on as miserly a purchase price as possible.

The entertainment appeal of the show comes in the form of the often hilarious errors of the candidates,  the distainful expressions displayed by Sugar, Brady and Hewer in observing these errors and the dramatic crescendo at the end of the show, where Lord Sugar dispatches the waste of space of the week, with the immortal words,' You're fired!'

From a business point of view, I believe that all viewers learn something about industries they knew little about before. This year we have been given a glimpse into the complex worlds of waste removal, retailing, fast food, not to mention Mobile based Application Sales and Advertising.

Overall The Apprentice is predominantly an entertainment show that is peppered with useful business information, industry insight and motivation for those that are considering a foray into the Business world.

Possibly the greatest asset of the show is that it offers children and young adults the opportunity to learn about Business in an enjoyable manner. Lord Sugar is as credible a self-made man as you are going to get and I would not be surprised if this show spawns a sea of budding entrepreneurs or maybe a field of entrepreneurs, as Stuart Baggs, 'The Brand' would say!