Sir Gerry trumps the Dragons

Sir Gerry Robinson’s new business show, Gerry’s Big Decision, is the best on television because it spotlights the plight of Britain’s entrepreneurs more accurately than Dragons’ Den and The Apprentice combined.

For those of you who don’t know, Gerry's Big Decision kicked off a new series on Thursday evening. It saw Robinson, a multi-millionaire champion of British industry, assess the prospects of two stricken brewing companies – both with seemingly only weeks to live.

Robinson checks them out, looking for underlying growth potential, examines the team, financials and customers, and makes the difficult decision whether to bailout both, one or neither.

By ‘bailout’ I mean 'take a majority stake in and turnaround for (hopefully) a profit', not the government’s version which involves shovelling money into a furnace of dying industries.

Okay so the morals are questionable: it’s begging bowl television and presumably soon a business will go through the horror of airing its failings to the nation without the recompense of investment from the millionaire Irishman.

But it’s more noble than having a bunch of over-eager sales execs tear each other apart for our amusement or forcing oddball inventors to look silly on camera in the slim hope of getting a few quid (great as those shows are).

In the first installment of GBD, Robinson had two potential investments on the table and shared a total of £350,000 between them. A Dragons’ Den investor would struggle to allocate that amount in an entire series.

And by the look of it, Robinson’s investments will gather pace as increasingly large and indebted businesses come knocking on his door.

It will be tough for him to keep a clear business mind, given his unusual level of access to the managers and staff of the businesses; and Gerry himself admits it’s tempting to turn the show into a charity event.

For the viewer, it sheds light on the reasons businesses go bust, and more importantly what they have to do to turn things around. It shows the emotional strain, the mind-boggling risks and the hard work involved, as well as wondrous feeling when things go your way.

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By Dan Matthews  on   Jul 03,2009

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Keywords

Sir Gerry Robinson    business TV    Robinson    Gerry Robinson    Dragons   

Comments

CharlesOJ
Gerry just doesn't get involved enough. Say what you like about Mr G Ramsey but he gets his hands dirty. I thought much of Gerry's advice was platitudinous, and he was FAR too relaxed when talking to basket case managers. Intriguing all the same - and far closer to the real world than Kitchen Nightmares. Still nothing to rival Troubleshooter though... Report Abuse