Business rules management is the summary of efforts made to create, manage, and automate business rules, with the aim of achieving an organization’s goals faster and with fewer resources.
Business rules, in the same vein, are statements that simplify a business/organization’s policy into basic building blocks needed to achieve their aim. Business rules define how tasks are carried out and generally how specific parts and functions in an organization are run.
Business rules management defines how organizations run and makes it possible to achieve targets at scale, without having to liaise with the relevant authority in the organization every single time. In essence, business rules management takes policy and makes it execute on autopilot so it’s easier to apply it when necessary.
In this article, we explore what exactly business rules management and a BRMS (business rules management system) mean for your organization, how they can help you get better results faster, and how they sync with your processes for even better results.
What does BRMS stand for?
A business rule management system is a system that’s designed for defining business rules and decision logic (if/then branches) that’s then automated across all the branches of the organization’s tech stack where these rules apply.
A business rule management system serves as a repository for storing defined business rules, as well as an action center from where they can be looped across to the various parts of the organization’s tech stack when decisions are about to be made in processes.
The BRMS stores decision logic, variables, case scenarios, and applicable caveats that make up business rules so they can be managed right from one place—the BRMS.
Business rules management systems are unique in the sense that they’re not designed to function as an in-built part of an organization’s business rule engine; rather, business rules management systems are designed to function as standalone widgets that are created, edited to meet changing needs, and then looped in to function across numerous applications where business rules apply.
In this way, business rules management systems can be maintained from one source of truth which then affects every other part of the organization’s tool stack where the rules it defines are applied.
Why use a Business Rules Management System?
A business rule management system makes it possible for business rules to be managed at scale, with speed, and ease. A BRMS comes in handy in several scenarios where there are a significant number of decision rules that need to be applied across many applications, etc. Here are some key situations where a BRMS will prove invaluable:
Companies looking to stay on the cutting edge of applicable industry regulations in order to avoid fines and legal action
With a full-fledged business rules management system, decision rules can be baked into an organization’s internal processes. As a result, applicable rules and regulations can be applied unfailingly (and verified) at the appropriate stages of a process. This helps the organization stay ahead of legal action for disregarding relevant policies.
Companies where internal policies or decisions significantly affect customers, vendors, or other external parties
Granted, for every organization, internal policies are guaranteed to have some ripple effects outside. But in some cases, internal policies launched without due diligence might have severe consequences on the company’s external network that’ll end up serving as significant drawbacks for the company. As a result, a BRMS offers an ideal solution for making sure dependencies are created that prevent such potentially damaging decisions from being made without adequate analysis.
Businesses where decisions are made slowly, manually, or wrong very often
A BRMS offers an ideal advantage for forward-thinking organizations. It packs the right logic into one source of truth that can then be deployed over and again to wherever it’s needed. What this means is that decisions are faster, automated, and are significantly more accurate since they’re vetted from a high level before being deployed.
Businesses or organizations where rules are integral to day-to-day operations
A BRMS makes it possible that all the rules, intricacies, and applicable considerations that go into making decisions in an organization can be compressed and managed with ease. A BRMS simplifies the art of managing business rules by bringing all relevant determiners right in one place where it’s easy to control.
Benefits of a Business Rules Management System
A well-designed BRMS simplifies the decision-making process so that no matter how large, organizations can focus more on getting work done vs. having to decide what next at every stage. Other key benefits of using a business rules management system include:
Identifying incomplete, illogical, or incomplete decision logic that may be detrimental to the organization’s targets.
The business rules management system serves as a single source of truth where the entire organization can create and manage business rules at scale. What this means is that business rules can be analyzed from a 30,000-ft. level to determine where decision logic doesn’t pan out or where changes can be effected.
Safeguards the integrity of decision logic from bad actors—internal and external alike.
A well-designed business rules management system incorporates adequate security features that guarantee business rules cannot be changed on a whim, altered, or lost, both to hackers or malware, or altered by unauthorized staff members.
Scaling business rules management beyond the 1 + 1 level.
With a well-designed business rule system, decision rules can be scaled across several other applications where the organization manages its work. By integrating right into the organization’s source code, a BRMS makes it easy to scale decision rules to numerous applications which can all be managed cohesively from one source of truth.
Simplifying the business rule management process.
When there’s a single source of truth for defining business rules and plugging them into all other apps and tools they’re needed, something interesting happens. First, it gets infinitely easier making any appropriate changes to business rules since they can be controlled all in one place.
Secondly, these business rules can now be applied and changed faster instead of cracking open individual applications and changing rules and decision logic.
The speed and control factor BRMS offer in the business rules management space make them a no-brainer for any forward-think organization. They make it easy to define, automate, track, and manage decision logic with infinite ease.
Business Rules Complement Business Processes and Automation
In the bigger picture of business rules management, a business rules management system does more than just determine what gets done at any decision junction. A business rules management system defines how effective business processes and all the layers of automation built into them are.
How?
By piloting how business processes work, business rules define what gets done at every stage and therefore, hold the key to successful business process management and a push towards automation.
