Wednesday 20 March, 2013

How Business Rules Define Your Business Strategy

Today I happened to read MIT CISR research briefing titled as "How Business Rules Define Your Business Strategy". Very precisely, this briefing explains how Business Rule Engine (BRE) can be used to implement aspects of business strategy. It describes a case of Citrix, which used BRE for two business areas: partner certification and partner incentives. Few noteworthy points from this research briefing are as follows:
  • A business rule is a specification of the action to be taken in a given business circumstance.
  • Business rules connect business strategy and operations by informing daily operational decisions and by informing the metrics on scorecards that track individual performance. 
  • Digitization of business rules can facilitate development of single source of truth - a data repository that can be used for reporting and analytics.
  • Additionally Management needs to be engaged in continuous coaching of individuals, which can help in clarifying the rules and the data.