The Bank of Montreal, popularly known as the BMO Financial Group is headquartered in Canada. It is a global investment bank that offers financial services to its members. The company is planning to implement gamification, which is an online marketing method, which involves game-playing and aims to maximize customers' interaction with the goods and services of a company. Gamification would be applied in the company, through the inclusion of online gamified questionnaires, quizzes, or surveys while assisting clients to meet their financial needs. Online investing will also be applied, where customers are awarded points and they are displayed, which will motivate the customers to compete. Lastly, gamification will be applied in the creation of additional levels, where the level five members would receive benefits. The paper evaluates the value, adaptability, rareness, inimitability, and monetization (VARIM) of the gamification innovation in BMO. An evaluation of the risk will also be done as well as the implementation process, resources needed, and duration.

Customers consider a service valuable if it meets their demands and it is of high quality. Gamification innovation is valuable as it builds a trusting relationship between the company's professional rewriting service and its customers.  The use of online investing enables the customers to participate and interact with the company, where they attain a deeper understanding of the goods and services offered by the company. In this process, the buyers ask questions and raise concerns which guide the company on the changes to make, thus improving the value of its services.

Adaptability is the other aspect, which refers to how well the innovation would be integrated into the organization. Gamification is not cost-effective, as purchasing an eLearning system is a challenge. However, the process depends on the organizational culture, where employees who are flexible would adapt to the technology better than those who are not flexible. The application of gamification in Canada has increased, whereby in 2015, 50% of the nation's organizations had considered applying it. Thus, it is not rare in the nation, meaning that a company has to implement reliable processes to gain a competitive benefit. At the same time, most of the organizations that have applied gamification in Canada are health centers. Considering financial institutions, only the Recycle Bank has applied it. Therefore, BMO would achieve the rareness aspect, which is beneficial.

Imitation in the use of gamification is expected, especially when an organization applies it and gains benefits. Even though the adaptability of the systems could be expensive, most organizations are not budgeting more, so new technology is adopted. At the same time, gamification is not yet too common in the nation, meaning the opportunity would be considered by many organizations. When other organizations imitate the use of this innovation, a fast development would be evident, where companies ensure more strategies that would help them overcome the rest. As a result, maintaining the standards would be expensive, especially for beginners. However, only a few companies would imitate the others and maintain the standard, because the organizational culture of different companies work differently.

The last element in the VARIM framework is monetization. The main aim of BMO financial group is to offer services to customers and earn from it.  As at that, the primary source of income for the company is the buyers. The innovation must, therefore, aim to meet the demands and preferences of the customers, for money to be gotten. As said above, gamification boosts the interaction between the company and the buyers, meaning that their preferences are known, making the bank earn money.

Based on the above assessment, the BMO Company should implement gamification in its operations because the risk is worth it. The process should be guided by several elements, one being to make the innovation required by the customers. Employees have little time to handle a lot of work. They, therefore, prioritize the tasks that are needed while the rest are ignored. Secondly, the games should be blended into the plans of the bank. It should be mixed with the other training events of the company but should not replace them. Gamification should also be used as reinforcement so that it is well integrated into the company. The other step is offering incentives to the workers who implement it so that it acts as a motivation for them. The establishment of a communication strategy should also be ensured so that unity is created and change issues like resistance are prevented. The use of reports and training adoption should also be ensured, where the employees raise concerns about the innovation and they are solved accordingly.

Lastly, insights through surveys should be gathered. The company should ensure that the application of gamification is continuous, by considering the ideas raised by workers. Several resources should be available for gamification to be implemented. One is training resources, where the workers should be guided in using the innovation so that the intended goal is achieved. Gamification resources like e-learning systems should also be provided so that the workers use them to improve the technology of the company. Normally, the adoption of a new aspect in an organization takes 21 days. The BMO would take the same time if the resources above are provided at the right time.