DaveBirchall.com on Business Technology

Archive for May 22nd, 2009

If there’s one thing I have learnt in the world of IT sales, it’s this: Busy IT buyers have enough on their plate without all the waffle and three letter acronyms (TLA’s) that get banded around the IT industry.
In my experience, people appreciate it if you just get to the point and quickly. So without further a do, here’s 10 reasons why I choose to evangelise InRule Technology. See how much of this makes sense for your department / business.

1.) Write business logic code faster and more efficiently

InRule allows you to write business logic statements and create decision tables without the need to for code. As a rough guide 5000 lines in C# can be achieved in only 150 rules in InRule. Faster programming means quicker return on investment, a happy boss and more chance of getting your annual bonus.

2.) Write business logic statements that communicate directly with the business , not just your IT department.

Ask yourself what the average business person understands… a page full of code or a report or repository of business rules using familiar and domain specific language.You can even set your own vocabulary. Wouldn’t that make life easier?

3) Centralise and collaborate on your business logic.

Two minds are better than one,three minds are better than two and the story goes on. Remember the days when you could only make changes to a website via an HTML competent webmaster? Along came content management systems, changed all that and we have never looked back. This evolution in technology allowed us to make changes to content and fast track the change management process. Now, multiple staff members could work simultaneously on web content.

The development of a truly functional rules management system allows your business to enjoy the same benefits in your business logic. However, this evolution in rules management has a much larger consequence for the business.

Since rules exist in every part of the business, there is now an opportunity to catalyse every area of the business. Rules can now be placed in a centralised repository or catalogue and can be understood by non technical business users.

When everyone has visibility of business rules, you can start to collaborate, and that’s powerful!

4) Easy integration with minimal coding or SOA connectivity

InRule can be bound to your business logic layer with only a few lines of code in .NET. If you’re using another flavour of code or you have mixed architecture they have thought of that too. InRule has SOA functionality out of the box making connectivity a doddle.

5) Complement the connectivity of BizTalk with the rules functionality of InRule for a killer package

InRule for SOA comes with irAdapter for Biztalk server. This means that InRule and Biztalk can function harmoniously and make your life easier.

6) Inline ruling of not –it’s your decision

Put your rules in single long line or organise them in branches. Create rule on rules, time trigger them, lock them down, print them off, verify them…. the list goes on. Well there’s a reason it’s called business rules management

7) Killer performance

What use would a knock-out Business Rules Management Application be if it wasn’t backed up with a highly optimised, low foot print rules engine to execute them. Let’s just say that InRule doesn’t disappoint us here.

8)It’s not going to break your budget

It’s free to try and pretty darn reasonably price to buy. Given the impact that Rules management can have on a business, I struggle to think of a singular piece of technology that provides more business value.

9) You’ve never met a bunch of people more willing to help

They were great with us when we were a customer of InRule and we’ve since met plenty of other customers that sing their praises. Just let them know what you’re trying to achieve and they’ll do their best to help you achieve it.

10) Business Decision Management Works

When a Top 5 Bank in the US moved from hard-coded logic to automating business logic with InRule for use in Risk Rating scorecards for various forms of lending, they enabled risk analysts to “configure new scorecards and revise existing ones, taking 68% of programming out of the cycle time and significantly enhancing the Speed to Market.”

To find out more about how managing the rules can make your life easier and your business more effective visit http://www.inrule.com/
Or visit http://www.inrule.com/products/productEvaluation.aspx to start your free trial