Management Information System (Essay Sample)

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Management Information System
Introduction
In 2011, Gartner projected that by 2015 more that 50% of business entities that manage innovation processes would have gamified their processes CITATION Gat11 \p "par. 1" \l 1033 (Gatner par. 1). Most games model real world scenarios or objects. For example, as playing motor-based video games become more like driving real trucks or cars, real world motor vehicles are modeled to emulate the driving experience in video games. For instance, the car industry has aligned its drift to the growing gamification trends by adopting all-electronic vehicles common in video games. In the current globalised and digitized business environments, there are many opportunities that require behavioral transformation and consumer engagement. It follows that gamification has applications ranging from crowd sourcing solutions, to training human resource, to improving employees productivity. For example, Nike, Salesforce and Evoke uses game mechanics to transform social behavior t. World-class business entities continue to adopt gamification solutions to enhance employee performance, boost customer loyalty, optimizing ROI on their enterprise systems, social networks, websites and online communities. This paper explores the concepts of gamification and its practical application in real world business environment. It focuses the adoption of gamification in Deloitte’s Leadership Academy, precisely in its online executive training courses.
The mechanics and techniques of gamification
Gamification is the application of game mechanics in non-game applications or systems. Game mechanics refers to the objects, space, actions and rules that make up game. In other words, game mechanics are components that make game designers and developers attract and maintain users or gamers. These include leader boards, levels, points and rewards. For example, in the Grand Theft Auto video game, players are rewarded points or bounties based on their progress, making the game more addictive CITATION Roc14 \p "par. 1" \l 1033 (Rockstar Games par. 1). The same concept can be transferred to real world business scenarios to engage participants or the targeted demographic segment. Likewise, the most common mechanics of gamification include levels, leader boards, points, badges and challenges.
Typically, games offer a low-risk experimentation platform with timely feedbacks. In addition, they provide a persuasive narrative, as well as, recognize status and provide challenging tasks, but practicable. Similarly, gamification provides short time and achievable targets to maintain engagement. Visible symbols such as badges and leader boards are used to reward achievements and improve social recognition. Clear cut rules are used to guide the participants to their objectives. Further, the speed of feedback is increased to maintain the engagement of participants. Characteristically, gamification is applicable in non-game processes or application to encourage or influence people to make use of the same processes or applications. Gamification improves engagement by motivating users to engage in desired trends or patterns; it shows a path to autonomy and mastery; and help users to solve problems without distractions. In essence, gamification exploits the human’s psychological tendency to engage in gaming or gaming spaces. As a matter of fact, humans like to win and would engage in a process or system that stimulates their body sensation or positive moods through rewards. As seen in Deloitte’s case study, gamification encourages the targeted people to engage in activities or processes that are ordinarily perceived as boring or taxing such as reading detailed websites, filling tax returns forms, shopping online and completing online surveys.
Practical Application of Gamification in Business World
One of the successful applications of gaming mechanics was the gamification for Deloitte’s executive training process. Deloitte Leadership Academy offers wide-ranging online coursework for an array of consultation topics with an aim of making its trainings more accessible employees and client companies. The challenge was to get both groups sign up, take courses and maintain corporate training regardless of their busy schedules. By using Badgeville Game Mechanics, the company could guile their clients along clear learning paths and give them real-time feedback on their progress. By the time client companies and employees completed their respective coursework; they had built reputation that naturally motivated them to engage continuously CITATION Bad14 \p "par. 3" \l 1033 (Badgeville par. 3). In terms of business results, there was increase regular adherence and course completion. To that end, Deloitte improved its learning process, which made it locate and source experts for large projects with ease CITATION Bad14 \p "par. 4" \l 1033 (Badgeville par. 4). Additionally, the gamification of the executive training made it easier for Deloitte to evaluate employee performance holistically. According to Badgeville (par. 4), the academy’s course completion rate increased by 50%. Its daily returns rates improved by 47 %. Further, weekly retention rose by 36%. The highlighted business results at Deloitte Leadership Academy after the implementation of the gamification of its executive training system illustrates the fact that the opportunity space of gamification is very wide and includes marketing, training, social change, employee performance and innovation CITATION Bri11 \p 2 \l 1033 (Burke 2). In this context, results were improved through increased levels of engagements and transformed behavior of participants
The utilization of gamification in Deloitte’s cases study and other companies is an indication of the acceptability of the mechanics of gaming as an effective approach of generating business opportunities or expanding business presence i...