Microsoft Invests in Gamification for Dynamics Platform
Microsoft on Monday acquired a company with a gamification platform for motivating sales teams through robust contests. It also disclosed plans to bring the platform first into Dynamics CRM and eventually into more Dynamics products.
Terms of the deal to acquire Incent Games Inc., the Austin, Texas-based maker of FantasySalesTeam, were not disclosed.
FantasySalesTeam combines sales contests with fantasy sports league concepts to help sales managers generate contests that allow non-salespeople to get engaged and draft teams of salespeople who score points for the team via multiple metrics.
"While incentive programs and contests are leveraged in almost all sales organizations, most suffer from common shortcomings: the same top performers almost always win and the rest of the team tends to disengage fairly quickly once they realize they've fallen behind or out of contention," wrote Bob Stutz, corporate vice president of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, in a blog post announcing the acquisition. "FantasySalesTeam creatively addresses these problems with a tailored approach that drives amazing results."
The gamification application currently has hundreds of customers, including Service Corporation International and Wireless Zone.
"We believe that motivating users of Dynamics CRM to focus on their most important metrics while simultaneously increasing usage and adoption can help drive tremendous impact on our customer's success," Stutz said.
He said integration with Dynamics CRM would occur in the coming months. While promising to continue to support FantasySalesTeam customers on other CRM platforms, Stutz sketched general plans to integrate and evolve FantasySalesTeam into the other parts of the Dynamics ecosystem.
In a separate blog post, Incent Games CEO Adam Hollander said, "This acquisition is a testament to the power of gamification when designed and implemented the right way."
Posted by Scott Bekker on August 03, 2015