"Gamification" framework has been embraced by a lot of companies in the recent years and the likes of Zynga, Foursquare, Badgeville have succeeded tremendously by either implementing gamification features for virality or for developing a relative royalty / reward system.
Personally, I am always fascinated by the applications of gamification in the workplace. I discussed in an earlier post how gamification can help brands expose their true work culture to prospective employees. Despite numerous success studies and sheer simplicity of gamification principles (perfect implementation is a tough ask though), there haven’t been too many case studies emerging where enterprises have implemented gamification techniques in unique and innovative ways to improve employee engagement or to make work FUN.
What is heartening to see is that some of the interesting gamification applications are coming from large scale enterprises like IBM, Deloitte, SAP AG etc. as these companies strive to take the boring out of the workplace. The applications range from very simple ones like awarding badges based on meeting specific milestones or morphing a CRM system to look like a golf course ( I personally loved this gamification implementation by SAP AG)
What you see in the image is an application that SAP provides its sales rep. Golf Balls represent "leads" and have detailed information about the leads and users can drag these leads into the holes (assign the lead to a specific sales representatives)
Now there may not be something groundbreaking about this, but it sure sounds and looks fun instead of having a system wherein you fill data in lots of boxes and then assign a lead to a rep by choosing the name from a drop-down.
Badge based applications are the most commonly used when it comes to bringing gamification into the enterprise. Badge based applications can be highly customized but they tend to deliver one thing nonetheless – making the employee feel special. It can be in the form of bragging rights, recognition or monetary rewards but badges offer a sense of achievement (akin to becoming a mayor in Foursquare).
What are your thoughts on gamification in the enterprise? If you are aware of more interesting cases where enterprises have implemented gamification techniques in interesting and unique ways, do share with us!
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Came across similar cool sales gamification application by eMee, emee.co.in. Finally enterprises are moving towards making a dull day bit more chearful. :)