For the past few weeks I’ve been getting through this tome on my business trips around Europe and the one thing I can say with certainty is my back has suffered through carrying this book in my laptop bag. Its 589 pages…and its not a large font either. Nevertheless I couldn’t put it down and its not because Lord Alan is an especially funny character (he’s not), and its not because his annecdotes are especially humorous. Its because right from the early days in extensive detail, every part of this man’s business career is described to the extent that you really feel you are with him, behind him and completely ‘get’ his decisions. Its all clearly written by him and not some ghost writer as his manner and language is so recognisable. I’m amazed how he remembers it all to be honest – and in such detail – but he does… and very soon you begin to realise what a massive career Lord Alan has behind him.
I can never claim to be a fan and I would never want to work for this kind of character as I think his micro-managing style and dogmatic approach to everything would probably wind me up no-end. But you cannot help but admire and respect him…not just for where he is now, but for whole road, the long journey where at every step difficult business decisions are made which in retrospect look straightforward but at time when you are under pressure it must have been difficult to hold the line.
I love the early stories that reveal the strategies around the type of business Amstrad was. From buying record decks from one supplier and then putting them together with a wooden cabinet from another, package it, add your margin and there go. In fact Alan’s knack for ‘getting the price right’ was genius. What he would do is decide what the killer price for a product was – and then divide by 1.54 which was his formula for working out what the complete cost of the build had to be. As long as he could maintain this he was on to a winner (..or in Alan’s words “at the races”).
The story starts at humble beginnings and moves through the hi-fi period where he introduced the integrated tower system, the dual cassette decks and even dual video machines. From the hi-fi period he went on to the computer world right when the PC market started exploding. I for one was one of the first customer of the Amstrad PC1512. I learnt a lot about basics of retail (I run some ECommerce stores), entrepreneurship and his own marketing style such as “lead in price”. This is price advertised for product A, knowing that every one would want model B as its got this extra feature. For example the PC1512 was advertised at £399 for black and white, but the actually sold more of the £499 one which was colour.
I grew up with all his technology so I understood exactly where he was coming from, but I didn’t appreciate that Amstrad was really what made Sky such a success and then reading about the exploits whilst chairman of Tottenham is a book on its own. You wouldn’t believe the cr*p that went on behind the scenes and the flack that he got. If it were me I would have got out of that real quick.
His book goes through every story, and there is certainly some emotion in the writing where you can tell he really wants to get the reality of what happened out in the open and put right the public mis-perceptions by setting the record straight.
The book concludes with Alan’s being made a Lord together with stories around the Apprentice which bring the reader right up to where we are now.
As I said earlier I never really thought much of Lord Sugar, but now having read through the whole experience I have nothing but respect and admiration for a fantastic career which can be credited for some incredible achievements that well and truly changed the face of consumer technology today.
A great read for any entrepreneur, aspiring or otherwise…and of course all Tottenham fans.
