Most businesses have rules that define and implement policies, whether they relate to internal operations or to the products and services they offer to their customers. Often these rules define the strategy of the business and determine its success or failure. Adjustments to the strategy typically mean changes to business rules. The problem is this–these days business rules are implemented in software, and everyone knows that software changes don’t happen quickly. Business rules engines (BRE) expedite rapid changes in business rules within enterprise business rules engine software.
The Business Rules Bottleneck
For years enterprise architecture has separated systems into three tiers–a presentation tier, a flow control or application tier, and the data validation tier. Business logic is usually embedded across all three tiers. When policy makers decide to change rules engine direction, often database routines must change, application server enterprise software may require adjustment, and user interface options will have to be altered. The entire IT infrastructure is affected. To bridge the gulf between IT and policy makers, business analysts are often charged with creating detailed requirements and other documents which coders use to implement the business requirements in software. This translation of business logic into code creates a bottleneck for change and slows responsiveness to developing business needs and priorities.
The RBE Solution
The central principle of business rules management systems (BRMS) is to extract the embedded business logic from the multiple tiers of enterprise applications and to centralize it into a set of rules that can be easily monitored, controlled, and altered by business analysts. Control of business rules and logic is thereby placed in the hands of the business professionals who know them. A business rules engine can be thought of as a fourth tier in enterprise applications, the tier that houses the rules of the business. Rules are written as declarative statements in plain English, typically as IF-THEN-ELSE statements. When integrated with the other tiers, the BRE works through the rules until all conditions are satisfied.
In the Financial Industry
BRMS has been most widely implemented in the financial industry, which has seen an explosion of loan products, each governed by its own set of rules. Software applications typically check the applicant’s credit history, income and other factors bearing on credit, as well as that of co-signers, and make recommendations for loan products and find the best price for the customer’s circumstances. This process is highly rule-intensive, but by using BRMS, business analysts are able to enter the rules that generate the code that approves loans. As a result, loan companies can create sophisticated and innovative products without incurring overwhelming IT investments. BRMS has not only reduced IT costs and reduced time to market for the industry, but importantly, it has reduced translation errors between the business experts and programming.