Business Process Software Technology,
Rules Modeling Solution Business Rules in the Real World

The best way to understand the full impact of the business rules approach is through an example. Read on to see the concrete value to be gained by implementing this approach in a re-empowerment project.

Agreements and Deals

The re-empowerment category of business rules projects allows the organization to make and implement deals — or, more precisely, to implement contracts and agreements with individual customers.
 
Today, nearly every company wants more customers — and highly individualized relationships with each of them. But products and services in today’s economy are also increasingly complex and differentiated.
 
So how can you manage highly individualized agreements for increasingly complex and differentiated products — with an ever-expanding number of customers? And how can you do it economically, flexibly and quickly?

The Traditional Approach

In the past, when a manager or marketing representative reached an agreement with a customer and received a formalized contract or letter, the agreement then went to the programming or operational staff to implement.

Three fundamental problems resulted.

• First, it was far too slow: The process may have taken weeks or months—a virtual lifetime at this critical juncture of customer relationship-building.
• Second, this process was difficult to manage effectively—because even if the programming and implementation were done correctly, the resulting code was too far removed from the original agreement, so changes to the business rules were slow, painful and expensive.
• And third, those employees who were in actual contact with the customers are not the ones with the IT skills to adjust the implemented rules of engagement. This displacement led to gaps, inefficiency and frustration all around.

The Business Rule Solution

Addressing these challenges, the business rules approach offers a powerful, two-part solution:

• Deals are viewed as collections of high-level business or governing rules. The business rule approach has evolved into effective techniques to interpret and manage such rules.
• Programming of deals is eliminated. Sophisticated business rule technology, such as that offered by the Unisys rules modeling solution, solves this problem by allowing the rules of engagement to be implemented more directly.

This solution produces a huge additional advantage. Much of the business rules activity can be removed from IT and distributed to employees directly in contact with customers. Business rules technology empowers those employees to manage the rules of engagement directly