Today’s consumers are interested in tailor-made products and services that specifically meet their needs and requirements. One of the practices that companies have adopted to meet these trends is by deploying business rules engines to help them run product configurators.Let’s take a closer look at the important role that business rules engines play in product configuration across different industries.

Defining Business Rules Engines

Business rules engines or business rules management systems (BRMS) are pluggable pieces of software that automate and execute business rules in enterprise applications or processes. These engines provide a robust framework for building, managing, and applying complex sets of business rules to carry out decision-making.

What makes business rule engines extremely popular among businesses is that they offer a user-friendly way of managing business rules. Traditionally, when changes to decision-making processes had to be performed, the IT department would have to find the time to have a software specialist to make the necessary changes. 

As a result, any changes to business processes would take weeks if not months to implement. However, with business rules engines, non-technical team members can build and update business processes on the fly without waiting for support from the IT department!

Understanding the Importance of Business Rules

Business rules are powerful “if-then” conditional statements that define or constrain business policies, procedures, or behavior. They act as guidelines for making operational and strategic decisions within a company. 

As a result, business rules can be used to represent a wide range of factors such as customer segments, compliance requirements, pricing policies, and various product configurations.

What are Product Configurators

Product configurators are interactive software tools that allow both companies and customers to customize products or services according to their particular requirements. 

Most product configurators offer users a wide selection of choices, enabling them to select specific features, options, or attributes to create a customized item.

Implementation Across Industries

Product configurators have been used in many different industries, including automotive, furniture, retail, and fashion. They enable customers to personalize products to their exact specifications, leading to higher conversion rates.

Streamlining Complex Configurations with Rules Engines

By connecting an existing product configurator to a business rules engine, organizations drastically can streamline the process of managing complex configurations. The engine analyzes the given options and ensures that the selected combination adheres to predefined rules, preventing invalid choices and reducing errors.

Real-time Validation and Error Prevention

Business rules engines can verify various selections in real-time, immediately spotting any conflicting choices or incompatible configurations. This validation not only improves the user experience but also prevents potentially costly mistakes and reduces the need for manual input.

Dynamic Pricing and Recommendations

Business rules engines can also be utilized to determine dynamic pricing based on the selected configuration options. These software solutions analyze pre-determined pricing rules, such as base costs and discount structures, to set competitive prices for customized items. 

What’s more, business rules engines can take customer data and preferences to make personalized recommendations during the product configuration process, allowing companies to cross-sell and upsell.

Business Rules Engines Empowering Product Configurators 

Many leading car manufacturers use business rules engines to enhance their online car configurators. By product configuration software to business rules engines to run complex rules, the brands allowed their customers to customize their vehicles while maintaining compliance with safety regulations and production limitations.

Furniture Industry

Furniture retailers often rely on business rules engines for product configuration. In fact, using a business rules engine to develop an interactive product configurator for customers in this space has become almost a must. 

Business rules engines allow customers to pick options from a wide selection of furniture styles, colors, and materials, ensuring that the selected features are both compatible and meet the brand’s production restrictions.

Summary

Business rules engines offer incredible potential for both building and enhancing product configurators across many different industries. By leveraging the power of rules engines, companies of all sizes can streamline complex product configurations, approve various selections in real-time, and provide customized products or services that drive engagement and revenue.

As technology continues to advance, integrating intelligent decision-making engines into product configurators will further enhance customer satisfaction and drive business success.