انتقال به یک مدل خدمات مدیریت قانون کسب و کار : مطالعات موردی از صنعت بیمه اموال و تلفات

As the volume, sources and types of business rules continue to grow, so do the needs of organizations to accurately, consistently and effectively manage rules. Increasingly, firms seek business rules management systems (BRMS) for assistance. Although studies have examined BRMS technical considerations, few have examined management considerations of deploying and managing BRMS projects. This study addresses this gap through examination and comparative analysis of BRMS deployments. Qualitative case study methods are employed and findings suggest a common deployment methodology and emergence of tightly structured services model. Participant's adoption drivers, consequences of deployment, IT alignment and transitions to IT service-orientations are provided.

Effectively managing business rules across systems, processes and business units are becoming a higher priority in many firms [25]. Organizations have found it necessary to develop ways of managing business rule churn due to new or changed rules from government legislation, business competition, regulatory agencies, industry norms and others. Adding to these challenges include increased web-based and global competition making it essential for firms to continuously monitor and rapidly respond as competitive threats emerge. Furthermore, the sheer number of channels to manage business rules continues to rise, be it legacy, web, wireless systems or otherwise thus necessitating consistent, accurate and synchronized rule updates across families of related systems. When one considers the volatility to which business rules are added or changed in businesses that transcend time zones, seasons, statutory boundaries and channels, the complexity of business rule management grows on an exponential basis. Fortunately, research and development has been conducted in academia and industry towards the development of automated business rule tools and techniques. For example, rule mining tools sweep through legacy program code, user manuals and other business documents to assist in the discovery and externalization of business rules. Business rule management systems (BRMS) have also been developed to assist with implementing and integrating business rules across information systems. In addition, methodologies have been developed to assist in business rule modeling, authoring, updating and maximizing rule reuse. More recently, studies have been published that advocate the establishment of business rules as a distinct layer in a services orientated architecture (SOA) [11] and [30]. Collectively, this research and development has begun to pay-off for organizations. Common benefits of effective business rules management have included firm-level agility, rapid rule updates, improved multi-channel management, greater control of business rule updates by the business staff, reduced system development time, in addition to significant improvements in rule consistency, accuracy and reliability [20]. Despite these significant technical orientated developments, little has been published regarding managing business rule projects and more specifically viewing business rules from a service science perspective. For example, how do organizations manage their BRMS development and deployment efforts? How are organizations structuring their support units for BRMS and what is the balance between IT and business staff? What benefits can be gained from viewing business rules from a service science perspective? Business rule management solutions are a quintessential illustration of an intersection between technology, people and business processes. Yet, with so much emphasis towards the technological aspects, we can lose sight of the management of information system considerations. As with many developments in the IT industry, it is the management of the technology and not the technology itself that presents the most significant challenges. Evidence is growing in the business press that this is occurring as it relates to developing and deploying BRMS [21] and [23]. To address these research questions, this study will examine five implementations of business rules management solutions in different firms from the same industrial group. We examine the underlying business drivers, scope changes, support roles, staffing levels, project management techniques, business–IT alignment and consequences of deployment. Although relevant differences between the firms are noted, the thrust of the findings suggests the use of a common implementation approach of business rule management solutions by the participating firms. This synthesized implementation approach is diagrammed, defined and referred to as the business rules deployment maturity model. The authors contend that this implementation approach is illustrative of the approach that firms may consider as they add business rule (BR) service delivery lines in their IT support units. The paper is organized as follows. A literature review is presented in Section 2 that reviews key related research streams, including business rules management, application integration, IT alignment and offers a view of business rules management from a service science perspective. Section 3 provides the research methodology and setting and Section 4 outlines key findings from the study. Section 5 discusses the results and provides comparisons of our findings to the literature review. Finally, the study's conclusions and recommendations for future research are provided in Section 6.

Business rules are emerging to have a profound impact on organizations of all types. As the need for real-time decision making, across multiple channels, on a consistent, accurate and timely basis, the need for firms to utilize a formal business rule management systems will continue to rise. This study closely examined the BRMS development and deployment practices of five firms, with an emphasis towards management of IT considerations. The results strongly suggest the use of a common deployment methodology and business rules services model have emerged within a leading, early adopter industrial group. An effective business–IT alignment with well-defined service-centric roles were found to be important factors contributing to BRMS project success. The consequences of their approach provided substantial benefits to the firms including improved firm-level agility, a return of control over BR updates from IT back to the business staff, improved perceived value of the IT support unit, rapid rule deployments, decreased systems development time, improved statutory/regulatory compliance, and enhanced ability to combat false and misleading information. The BRMS development and deployment practices do closely align with other widely researched MIS methods such as the enterprise application integration literature and the business–IT maturity model. As noted earlier in the paper, one of the study's limitations is the use of a single industrial group. Thus readers should be take caution in generalizing the findings beyond this setting. The selected industry, however, is regarded as a leader and early adopter in BRMS and the use of multiple firms from a single industry in case study research of this type is often preferred to enable greater depth of understanding and better control for cross-industry exogenous influences. Second, although the success or failure of the BRMS project was not part of the selection criteria of potential respondent firms, the selection process is likely biased towards firms with successful BRMS implementations. Indeed, closer examination of BR project failures and cross-industry comparisons of BRMS deployments represent possible extensions of this research. Other considerations for future research include more in-depth analysis of an organization's selection and prioritization process of business domains to implement BRMS across their enterprise, business rule compliance and building upon the business rules view from a services science perspective. As noted in the discussion, there are substantial opportunities for removing inefficiencies out of the BR supply chain while simultaneously enabling significant societal gains.