Microsoft announced the acquisition of Austin, Tex.-based start-up Incent Games, developer of the online platform FantasySalesTeam, on Monday. The acquisition will help the tech giant with a method to support and motivate sales teams. The financial terms of the deal were not made public.
Microsoft to offer new online sales platform to clients
Incent Games’ software enables sales teams to run a contest similar to sports fantasy games, leading to better sales performance. Microsoft said it would be offering the software to clients to enable them to see better performances from their sales teams.
In a blog post on Monday, Microsoft corporate vice president Bob Stutz said the company has updated its old sales incentive model with “gamification with fantasy sports and expertly applies it to a sales setting.”
Talking about Incent Games, Stutz said the platform helps in raising “team collaboration, productivity and consequently driving greater results and business growth.” Stutz believes the new platform will make employees better team players, thus leading to better sales team results. According to the executive, the FantasySalesTeam platform will be integrated with Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM for enterprises.
How the software works
FantasySalesTeam allocates “player” positions to employees on the basis of their sales performances. The platform also helps an organization draft non-sales employees such as service or operations workers, managers, and marketing and finance staff members to the teams.
The best scoring team, according to the company’s desired sales metrics and achievements, is awarded a prize, and the score is stored in the firm’s CRM system using out-of-the box integrations such as Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce.com. The platform can even be used independently of a CRM system by using another Microsoft tie-in, which allows scores to be recorded in Excel directly.
Incent Games, which was founded in 2012, had previously raised around $1.4 million from investors, including ATX Seed Ventures, Central Texas Angel Network, and Marvel Venture Partners. In 2015, the company concluded its Series A of $750,000 (a part of the $1.4 million funding).
FantasySalesTeam’s clients list include many big names such as HP, Siemens, FSU Credit Union, Service Corporations International, Bayada, Michelin, Guide One Insurance, Comcast, Wireless Zone, Intra Links, and J.J. Keller & Associates.
As of around 10 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, Microsoft shares were up 1.17% at $47.37, and year to date, the stock is up by almost 1%.
