Decision Management is a business discipline and technology stack that builds on existing enterprise applications and IT infrastructure, leveraging data to manage uncertainty, increase transparency and give the business control of their systems. Decision Management is a proven framework for implementation of business rules, data mining and predictive analytics. Decision Management Systems are agile, analytic and adaptive.

There are five core concepts in Decision Management – operational decisions, business rules, predictive analytics, decision analysis and optimization.

Operational Decisions

At the core of Decision Management is a focus on Operational Decisions. These decisions are not the big, high-value decisions beloved of management consultants and CEOs. These decisions are those required to make day to day operations run effectively. They ensure that customers are treated consistently, that the right price is offered, that the most effective offer is made. While the value of each individual decision is small, the cumulative effect is very large because organizations make these decisions often.

Business Rules

Business rules are the core building block of operational decisions. Business rules are atomic, declarative statements of business intent. Business rules implement the policies, regulations, know-how and expertise critical to decisions.

Predictive Analytics

One of the most powerful features of Decision Management is the ability to bring analytics into play. Predictive analytics includes data mining – used to investigate data and derive trends and characteristics that can be represented as business rules – and predictive analytic models that predict how customers might behave in the future. Decision Management allows these insights to be applied not just to broad statements or corporate strategies, but deep down into day to day operations.

Decision Analysis

Organizations use performance management techniques and technologies to continually evaluate their performance against metrics and monitor processes. Decision Analysis applies these same techniques to constantly monitor and evaluate decision performance so that the impact of decisions on the business can be assessed and used to improve decision making.

Optimization

Complex trade-offs and contradictory constraints can be hard to manage in decision-making systems. Optimization technology can find optimal or at least feasible solutions based on your business constraints and objectives. Whether making a workable decision or finding the set of decisions that generate the best overall results, optimization is a powerful technology.