Business Event Processing: Taking Complexity Out of the Equation by Amy Larsen DeCarlo

So how do you know if your organization is a good candidate for BEP? Consider these questions: Do you need to look at event patterns across multiple data sources to support successful process optimization? Do you need to make adjustments to applications when there is an anomalous sequence or timing of events? Does your organization change processing rules often, or need to be able to respond to exceptions and other changes dynamically? Do you want your business users to establish the processing rules? Most enterprises will find BEP is a fit for their organization as a tool for both resolving problems and capitalizing on emerging opportunities.

Business outcomes, for better or worse, are influenced by events that can range from the seemingly minor to the clearly significant — from a traffic jam delaying a delivery to a major change in a key lending rate. Unfortunately, it isn’t necessarily easy to see or understand how a single occurrence may affect the business. Nor is it always clear how discrete events connect to each other to effect change.

Event processing, which synthesizes data about events happening across the enterprise from multiple sources, lets organizations manage the impact of such events on the business. Typical event processing techniques include event visualization, event databases, and complex event processing (CEP). CEP, perhaps the most commonly used, detects patterns using event correlation. CEP can be used, for example, to look at how accelerating delivery speed by x miles per hour might increase a trucking company’s profits, or to show the increase in new loan applications a mortgage lender could expect given a decline of 20 basis points in mortgage rates.

Yet many organizations take an ad hoc approach to event processing that diminishes its effectiveness. Too often, events are looked at in isolation, and business analysts are unable to create lists of events to track.

Business users need a resource that gives them the power to define which events should be on their watch list and how to best respond. IBM is taking an innovative approach to addressing this challenge with business event processing (BEP). BEP represents the next generation in event processing, extending the tools and capabilities of existing event processing technologies (such as CEP) to the line-of-business.

IBM WebSphere Business Events marries powerful control with simplicity, giving business users a graphical interface they can use to manage event-processing logic themselves. Putting this control in business users’ hands helps accelerate time-to-value while driving down total cost of ownership.

The interface, which uses common business vernacular, enables business analysts responsible for key operational processes to specify which types of events to look for, the appropriate action to take in response, and the time when the response should occur. The ability to use familiar business terms erases the disconnect that often exists between IT and the business.

Businesses in any vertical industry can use IBM WebSphere Business Events in a number of ways, including:

• Detecting fraud and preventing identity theft by recognizing conditions that indicate illicit activity, enabling a business to respond appropriately to mitigate costly problems.
• Improving customer service in real or near-real time by noting patterns in customer behavior that indicate an issue with a product, service, or support.
• Reinforcing customer loyalty by making real and near-real time improvements in marketing and sales interactions based on events that indicate client satisfaction — or lack of it.

WebSphere Business Events supports other proactive activities, such as supply chain optimization, by giving businesses visibility into patterns of events that affect efficiency. Organizations can use information from WebSphere Business Events to redeploy resources to compensate for delivery delays. Some enterprises use WebSphere Business Events for regulatory compliance, isolating events that could jeopardize a company’s ability to meet mandates before the business actually becomes noncompliant. Utility companies and other businesses contending with aging physical infrastructures can use WebSphere Business Events to quickly compensate for problems with these infrastructures.

BEP offers many benefits beyond what traditional event processing can deliver, beginning with the lower total cost of ownership when an implementation requires no coding and can be put in place by business analysts. Directly involving business analysts in event processing also supports faster, more proactive responses. BEP also helps bolster the effectiveness of an overall BPM strategy and service-oriented architecture (SOA). In the current economic environment, the optimization of SOA is particularly important, as it will help organizations better leverage existing investments through reuse. All these elements add up to a faster — and more robust — return on an organization’s technology investment.

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Archive of Articles by Amy Larsen DeCarlo

2009
Get Smart: IBM BPM BlueWorks Gives Business a Better Path to Business Process Management » Read article
Business Intelligence Acquires a Whole New Meaning » Read article
Lean Six Sigma, BPM, and SOA: Accelerating Bottom Line Benefits » Read article
Applying a Role-Based Approach to Business Process Management » Read article