Says Mohit Kapoor, country manager, Alcatel Network Systems India Ltd: ``The Sales Challenge is to promote the concept of partnership, where we call operators, make a team of their sales personnel, give them a presentation on handset training programmes and conduct a lot of team-building exercises.''

Alcatel is flying in 40 personnel, who represent 22 national operators, to the Capital during the France-India 2000 technical exhibition. Besides savouring Alcatel's French hospitality, invitees will also play team building exercises, conducted by Holistic Enterprise. The idea behind organising Alcatel Sales Challenge is to build an Alcatel team which will complement its operator driven model. Alcatel plans to conduct such exercises on a sustained year-round basis.

Under the operator driven model, which it practises globally, Alcatel implements bundling programmes in conjunction with operators-offering handsets with SIM connection - which are tailored to customers' requirements and disposable income.