Forecast very good for new business game

Games are no longer just for playing.

Start-up Gordon Games is using them to help motivate sales staff to win more deals. Since last year it has released two products a Forecast Game and an Engagement Game which add an additional layer to customer relations management systems.

Company founder Fiachra Ó Comhraí, who describes himself as Player 1, says this novel approach to customer relations management system has been very well received.

“Our Forecast Game increases visible sales pipelines by getting reps to forecast more accurately,” says Mr Ó Comhraí. “Sales reps are given betting chips each month or quarter to place bets on the opportunities they think will close. The reps win chips depending on how accurate they are about the close date and value.’’

He says this allows companies to identify high-potential opportunities and that better forecasting results in increases of more than 10%.

“Great sales people can also be identified by their ability to forecast once the importance of forecasting is recognised,” he says.

The Engagement game is described as a Tamagotchi or Farmville style game which gives feedback to reps and managers about the health of opportunities already identified. Mr Ó Comhraí says one of the key selling points for the games is that they help sales people and managers to figure out what is real and what is not real in the sales pipeline.

Two years ago, Mr Ó Comhraí was working as vice president of sales for Salesforce.com in Europe when he thought about using gamification creatively to improve customer relations management systems. Gamification, the use of game techniques in non- game environments, is now widely used in a number of areas, but Mr Ó Comhraí says Gordon Games is the first to take this tack to forecasting.

Looking at the analysis of games, human motivation, and the reasons people play games which has accompanied the growth of the global games industry, Mr Ó Comhraí saw an opportunity to apply game techniques to drive the right sales behaviour in the area of customer relations management systems.

“While working with sales leaders, I realised the problems with customer relations management systems were human ones,” he says. “The systems were good but the difficulty was getting sales staff and managers to use them.”

Leaving Salesforce in 2012, he started learning everything thing he could about gamification. He was certified as a gamification designer by Gabe Zichermann in Berlin and also attended conferences in the US.

In May 2013, he set up the company in Dublin with a staff of three. Initially enrolled in Dublin Institute of Technology Hothouse programme he later participated in the Wayra accelerator programme in London. Since returning to Dublin, the company was identified by Enterprise Ireland as a high-potential start-up.

Gordon Games’s first offering, the Engagement game was released late last year and the Forecasting Game was added in January. Initially released on a limited basis for trial and testing, the company is beginning to build up a customer base.

Its prime target market are telecoms and hi-tech companies with large sales teams selling high volumes of products.

“Our first enterprise customer was O2’s business sales team in the UK which went live with 50 users initially. They now have 450 and we are in advanced discussions with another major telco’’ says Mr Ó Comhraí, adding that some smaller software companies have also signed up to use the games which are sold on a subscription basis.

Early this year, Gordon Games raised €315,000, from Velo Ventures Ltd, angel investors and Enterprise Ireland and is now raising a further €250,000, which will include €125,000 from Enterprise Ireland.

“This year has been about proving that the product delivers value, next year is about ramping up sales internationally,’’ says Mr Ó Comhraí, who has ambitious plans for global sales.

His aim is to develop Gordon Games quickly, at a Silicon Valley pace. Plans for 2015 include recruiting an additional 20 staff and securing funding to develop the company internationally. Already selling into the US, Gordon Games is aiming to raise some of this funding from US investors.

Mr Ó Comhraí says the company’s novel approach to customer relations management system has proved successful in opening doors for the company. Pursuing a global market worth over $1bn, he believes Gordon Games is levelling up fast to take a big slice of it.