Selecting an activity for sales and customer service people that has real relevance to their frontline roles can be difficult. Dropzone offers you a great solution as your group is organized into frontline teams. Each team is tendering to a biopharmaceutical research company for a specialized piece of equipment to go into what they call their "dropzone." Teams will earn points by tackling key tasks set for them along the way. Only one team can win.

To succeed, you need information from your prospective customer. You need to:

• Ask for the right information at the right time
• Quote a competitive price while maximizing profit potential
• Create and give a business-winning presentation to the prospective customer
• Design, build, test, and demonstrate your own solution to the customer's problem.

All the elements have to come together to maximize your chances of eventual success. A single computer, shared by all the teams, runs the exercise. Each team has access to the computer, but teams must agree how to ensure that they do not get in each other’s way at crucial times.

At the end of each 'round,' you are presented with a statement showing a league position for all teams and additional information that you request. The element of competition between teams generates complete involvement and the information flow from the computer generates a very real sense of urgency.

Dropzone ends with a grand finale in which all teams get to demonstrate their models and how well they work. Or how well they don't work! Expect cheers for each team. Loud ones from themselves if their model performs well, even louder from the other teams if their model fails! Never has the sales person's creed been more appropriate. Second is nowhere.