Bunchball Brings Gamification Platform to Salesforce.com

Motivation in sales and innovation is one of the fastest growing sectors for gamification. Today, Bunchball–the first company to offer a gamification platform for brand engagement–is announcing Nitro for Salesforce and entering the market to bring gamification to the enterprise. Nitro for Salesforce grows from many of the key mechanics that have already proven to encourage brand engagement by using techniques that game designers have used for years, such as points, levels, badges, and real-time feedback, and applies them to the sales team. Salesforce is the leader in B2B software as a service (SaaS) with a market cap of over $15B. As a finalist in AppQuest2011, Nitro may be representative of a larger push by Salesforce to implement gamification in its core products.

Nitro was released in 2007 and was Bunchball’s flagship gamification platform. It currently serves over 70 million unique users and over 2.3 billion user actions each month. Current clients include USA Network, Comcast, NBC, and Warner Bros., and Bunchball SVP of Marketing Mike Earhart believes that their long history in the consumer market will give them a boost in enterprise.

Mike told us over email, “Our experience in consumer-to-brand engagement has helped us understand  how to influence user behavior through compelling, in-context challenges and rewards. The same mechanics that motivate consumers can be thoughtfully applied to employees, partners and channels to directly impact productivity.”

Nitro for Salesforce will share a market with IActionable’s Engage platform, which also uses the Salesforce platform, as well as independent solutions by Rypple and even indirectly with innovation platforms such as Spigit.

Along-side other projects in education, health, and government, Nitro demonstrates how quickly gamification of the enterprise is accelerating. Earlier this year, Salesforce’s Chief Scientist, JP Rangaswami, took to the stage to talk about the fundamental shift in the way we approach work. At their heart, gamification solutions provide the tools and frameworks necessary to move beyond the long-standing hierarchical model for business. It provides key signals and motivates teams to self-organize around networks of skill and experience.

“We believe the addition of gamification to B2B applications has even greater potential than B2C, and that Nitro for Salesforce is a great example of easily incorporating gamification into an existing interface to drive increased engagement, collaboration and, ultimately, revenue,” Earhart told us. This is not only a “game layer” on top of business. As gamification of the enterprise evolves, it shows how it can change the way the world works.

Correction: Mike Earhart is SVP of Marketing at Bunchball and Jim Scullion is CEO.

Gamification Co will be hosting it’s second Gamification Summitin New York on September 15-16. Join keynotes from Gilt Groupe CEO Alexandra Wilkis Wilson and 42 Entertainment’s founder, Susan Bonds, to learn how the new science of engagement is rewriting the rules of product design. We are also offering the first ever Certificate in Gamification. For Gamification Blog readers, use discount code GCOBLOG for 25% off at http://gsummit.com/register. We look forward to seeing you there!