Business Rule

What Does Business Rule Mean?

A business rule is, at the most basic level, a specific directive that constrains or defines a business activity. These rules can apply to nearly any aspect of a business, in topics as diverse as supply chain protocols, data management and customer relations. Business rules help to provide a more concrete set of parameters for an operation or business process.

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Business rules can be applied to computing systems and are designed to help an organization achieve its goals. Software is used to automate business rules using business logic.

Techopedia Explains Business Rule

One way that business rules contribute to a clearer picture of any given business process is through a kind of binary concept. Typically, business theory experts see a business rule as either true or false. Here, business rules can be used in business planning in many of the same ways that they are used for algorithm development in programming. One example is the use of business rules on a flow chart that clearly shows how a defined true or false case will absolutely affect the next step in a business process.

Business rules can also be generated by internal or external necessity. For example, a business can come up with business rules that are self-imposed in order to meet leadership’s own goals, or in the pursuit of compliance with external standards. Experts also point out that while there is a system of strategic processes governing business rules, the business rules themselves are not strategic, but simply directive in nature.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…