What are business rules?
Business rules are the very essence of a business. They define the terms and state the core business policies. They control or influence business behaviour. They state what is possible and desirable in running a business - and what is not. One can increase agility of an organisation by a better management and enforcement of this valuable business asset.

Business rules are often expressions in one of the following forms:

• 'It is obligatory that ...'
• 'It is permissable that ...'
• '... must be the case if ...'.

What is the business rules approach?
The Business Rules Approach (BRA) is a combination of existing and new techniques and technologies in order to identify the knowledge required to run a business, to document this knowledge, to reason about it, to make it operational in a consistent way, to systematically adapt it to ever changing market forces and to automate this knowledge as far as possible. The Business Rules Approach is based on the Zachman Framework to ensure a holistic enterprise view.

A difference between the business rules approach and approaches from the past that have used the same techniques and technologies, or react to the same problems, is the focus on the business side and business responsibility for taking this road.