Now, check this post Talking S-O-A, by the Business-Driven Architect, .

Here are some of the interesting expansions on SOA from the post.

1. Strategic Outcome Attainment
2. Seizing Operational Agility
3. Situational Optimization Alternatives
4. Speed Offering Advantage

Now, that seems familiar! The above are also a Business Rules Management System Advantage. Read on.

Strategic Outcome Attainment

You need collaboration between the IT & the Business and a deep understanding of how your system is doing what you think it is doing. The Business needs visibility and you need control. A BRMS is built to enable both.

Seizing Operational Agility

Agility is the capability of the Business to respond to Business environment changes. You get no agility when all your business policies are locked up in code & databases !This is especially true of those services where constant change is how everyday is!

Situational Optimization Alternatives

Now, when you need to improve the way you are doing your business, you need visibility into your Business Process, you need to know how you did it earlier and any lessons learnt (BI), and of course you need to know how your process performs its Decisioning (Business Rules). If your Business Decisioning is hidden behind a black wall, you have no clue what your systems thinks the rules are,and of course the systems have no clue how you think the rules should be. Now, you fill in the rest ..

Speed Offering Advantage

Business functions that live in an atmosphere is constant change cannot function the ol’ 3GL way.
Lets take these systems as examples

1. Fraud Detection systems, where the rules change daily
2. Loan Processing Systems where the rate sheets change 3-4 times a day
3. Incentive calculation systems that have to account for a million different ways to compute incentives, with many more getting added/removed regularly,

These and other similar systems will make life pretty difficult indded in the current super-competitive environment without a BRMS to manage the complex business rules externally.

Final Words …

1. If your business has a serious need for Speed
2. If you are looking for agility from your business systems
3. If you are looking for improved visibility into your systems
4. If your systems make Business Decisions based on complex rules that change regularly
5. If you are hoping to achieve improved collaboration between your IT & the business

You bet you need a BRMS ..