What is Decision Management?
Modern-day business operations are centered around processes and data. However, when knowledge and expertise are forced into hard-coded, inflexible systems, bottlenecks occur. By adopting and scaling the capabilities of business rules, decision modeling, and machine learning, Digital Decisioning leverages data and expertise to create business value, improve results, and deliver a great user experience to effectively meet today’s operational requirements. For Digital Decisioning to deliver true value, it must initially focus on solving business problems that will, ultimately, contribute to positive and desirable business outcomes. Technology, automation, and methodologies are essential for Digital Decisioning, but they are always at the service of business decisions.
The foundation for successful Digital Decisioning projects is applying a Decision Management approach. Decision Management models business decisions first. These decisions, for the most part, have to do with customers and how you engage with them, deliver services to them, or handle their transactions.Once you have a good grasp of what decisions your business needs to make and how these decisions will advance your business, Decision Management shows which technology and analytics tools you need to invest in and how to integrate them. Finally, Decision Management focuses on the processes and infrastructure needed to ensure continuous improvement and business engagement. To maximize success, adopt a proven approach such as the DecisionsFirst™ approach from Decision Management Solutions.
A Business Rules Management System or BRMS is a complete set of software components for the creation, testing, management, deployment and ongoing maintenance of business rules in a production environment.
BRMSs offer many advantages over traditional code. A BRMS requires the elements shown in the diagram below:
An enterprise-class rule repository with audit trails and versioning
Design tools that allow technical users to integrate business rules with the rest of the environment.
Intuitive rule maintenance applications for business users
Verification and validation tools for both technical and business users
Testing and Simulation tools
Deployment tools supporting multiple platforms
A high-performance Business Rules Engine
A BRMS gives business users and analysts the ability to make routine changes and updates to critical business systems while freeing IT resources to concentrate on higher value-add projects and initiatives.
Example Commercial BRMSs*:
Actico Platform
FICO Blaze Advisor
IBM Operational Decision Manager
SAP BRFplus/Decision Service Manager
Sparkling Logic SMARTS
Example Open Source BRMSs*:
JBoss Drools
Open Rules
Red Hat JBoss BRMS
*Not intended to be an exhaustive list
Example of a Business Rules Management System
DecisionsFirst™ Solutions ― Enable your organization to make more straight-through, data-driven decisions with advanced analytics, machine learning, business rules and artificial intelligence (AI).
