New tools help companies keep internal rules in sync.
Ellen Gottesdiener A growing crisis surrounds the upkeep of business rules and the underlying applications that enforce them. Some experts say the problem could reach epidemic proportions in the coming decade-replacing the year 2000 problem on the IT priority list. Anyone managing a large organization understands the importance of standard business policies and procedures. Within IT departments, these policies and procedures are referred to as business rules. In most large organizations, they exist in hundreds of computer systems used by thousands of people.