Troubleshooter (TV series)
| Troubleshooter | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Business |
| Presented by | Sir John Harvey-Jones |
| Narrated by | Andrew Sachs |
| Country of origin | England |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | five |
| No. of episodes | 31 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Richard Reisz |
| Producer(s) | BBC Television |
| Location(s) | United Kingdom |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC |
| Original release | 1990-1993 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | I'll Show Them Who's Boss! |
Troubleshooter was a British reality television series, produced and shown by the BBC, focusing on experienced business leaders visiting and advising small and often struggling UK businesses.
It first aired in 1990 with Sir John Harvey-Jones, formerly of ICI. After the series won a BAFTA, Harvey-Jones decided that he didn't want to become a television personality, after one newspaper called him the "most famous industrialist since Isambard Kingdom Brunel."
The greatest achievement of the Troubleshooter programmes was to make business management a popular discussion subject in the homes of millions of British people, and to provide a role model for people wanting to enter business.
The series was revived a decade later in 2004 under the stewardship of Gerry Robinson, under the title I'll Show Them Who's Boss!'
The premise of the show is pretty simple: struggling small British business needs help, is offered free advice by former plc-level director; advice often given over number of months is then edited into 1hour duration television show.
However, the reason that it made Harvey-Jones Britain's most notable and public business person was the fact that he engaged both the audience and the company on a human level. By both observing key issues (Harvey-Jones was always very focused on markets and customers first, and then systematic efficient production secondly, focused around people and responsibility), and then asked simple questions to confirm his view or see if the management actually saw the problem.
After originally approaching companies to produce the first series, the BBC production team for the subsequent series were overwhelmed by applications from various British businesses and enterprises. This was in part for the quality of consultation that Harvey-Jones gave, but also for the publicity, which often resulted in an immediate revival for the company through increased sales.
After selecting a breadth of companies, industries and situations, Harvey-Jones and executive producer Richard Reisz would review the applications to choose the selected applicants. Harvey-Jones would nominally only have access to any published accounts, management provided plans, and any items of press and media that could be found, before engaging the company.
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