Decision management system which is cross-function, cross-industry and cross-platform

#1. Field of the Invention

#The present invention relates to a cross-function, cross-industry and cross-platform decision management system.

#2. Description of the Related Art

#Reference will now be made in detail to the present preferred embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to like elements throughout.

#FIG. 1 (prior art) is a diagram illustrating the general concept of a software-based decision management system which applies predictive modeling techniques to customer data.

#FIG. 2 (prior art) is a more detailed diagram illustrating the operation of a decision management system.

#FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating the functional flow of a decision management system, according to an embodiment of the present invention. Referring now to FIG. 8, in step 140, an inbound event is a trigger that is received from one or more external systems to identify that a particular client event has occurred. Here, a client refers to people or entities which interact with, or do business with, an organization. For example, clients include customers, accounts or applicants for services of the organization.

#From step 140, the system moves to step 150, where clients are assigned to different segments. A segment is a grouping of clients based on a characteristic by which the clients will be separated for applying different rules. Generally, a segment is a high-level segregation of clients for the purpose of associating largely independent high-level strategy. Thus, segments are separate groups of clients, for which a unique set of evaluation procedures have been defined. For example, a telecommunications company might have a segment for residential customers and another for business customers. Each segment can have, for example, a separate manager who is the only one with security rights to setup or modify the evaluation procedure for that segment.

#From step 150, the system moves to step 155, where each segment is further divided into categories. A category is a grouping of clients as defined by the organization such that it aligns client interaction/value management objectives. In other words, categories represent groups of clients based on how the organization views the clients. For example, a bank may divide clients (such as credit card holders) into the categories of Bronze, Gold, and Platinum, based on how the bank views the credit worthiness of the clients.