What’s a Business Rules Management System?

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A business rules management system is software that allows organizations to define and modify their own business rules. It eliminates the need for a large IT department and provides an encapsulated interface for executives to make policy changes. However, it can be costly to develop and operate.

A business rules management system is a type of business software that can help eliminate the need for a large information technology (IT) department within an organization. It contains integrated methodologies for setting up, defining and modifying business rules within the organization, making it a customizable program that allows organizations to define their own “business rules”. Business rules are simply the standards by which an organization operates, such as corporate policies and operational requirements. Beyond that, a business rules management system contains a fully functional interface for business operations; in other words, it’s a fully encapsulated software solution for an enterprise.

To understand the difference between a business rules management system and a regular business program, imagine a typical business program that allows salespeople to enter orders, retrieve customer data files, and so on. A business management system would contain all of these basic functionality, as well as contain a meta-interface that allows the organization to change business “rules” on the fly. For example, if the organization had a fixed rule that a customer can order no more than 1,000 items at a time, this would be integrated directly into regular business software, making it impossible for employees to process sales through the system for more than 1,000 articles. In business rules software, the software would contain functionality that allows an authorized user to change that and any other rules on the fly, allowing the software to continuously evolve with the organization.

The benefit of using a business rules management system comes from its encapsulated interface, which removes the IT department as the intermediary between executive-level policy changes and changes to the actual business software. With rule management software, executives can both decide on rule changes and change them in the system, providing a higher level of efficiency within the organization.

One of the major disadvantages of using a business rules management system is the cost. Of course, because the software is more complex than typical business software, it will cost more to develop, update and operate. The additional operating cost often comes from the hardware for the computers, as the system requirements for more complex software are naturally steeper than for simpler programs. Although, for organizations that can afford these upfront and labor costs, rules management software provides a streamlined approach that, over time, can end up saving the business money.




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