JT on EDM

Recently, Ronan Bradley discussed the challenges for banks in the area of compliance, given the rapidly changing environment. He made three specific points with which I agree and that I think shows the value of a decision management approach for banks and others facing an unknown but difficult regulatory environment in the next year or two:

• “compliance will remain a major driver of IT projects in 2009″
  Compliance has always been a driver of decision management as the use of declarative, rules-based approaches and the explicit identification and management of decisions make it much easier for organizations to ensure and demonstrate compliance in those decisions. Opaque and poorly managed decisions are hard for regulators to evaluate and for companies to report on. Decision management eases the compliance burden significantly.
• “opportunistic responses to specific requirements”
  One of the values of decision management is increased agility in systems. Even if I don’t know what changes will be required, if I have adopted decision management then I will be better placed to find the decisions that must change and to make the right changes to those decisions. Decisions hidden in code buried away in applications or in process specifications are too hard to change fast.
• “much stronger focus on real time assessment of risk”
  Decision management allows for risk models – predictive analytic models of risk – to be applied in real-time in operational systems. Essentially every decision in every transaction uses the risk approach of the organization (as developed into its risk models) to help balance risk and reward for that transaction. Only decision management can realistically deliver this kind of in-line risk management.

So, to prepare for an uncertain regulatory future, adopt decision management now.