Happy New Year! 2017 saw strong growth in decision management and decision modeling with DMN, especially in claims, underwriting, marketing and origination. Customers increasingly are choosing Decision Management to integrate advanced analytics, business rules and AI into their operational systems, and deliver consistent decisions across multiple applications and channels. There were also notable changes in how customers see decision modeling, advanced analytics and AI, and the shift to digital business.

DMN had a great year

Interest in decision modeling grew rapidly in 2017. More customers than ever asked about decision modeling and the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard. This increase in demand was met by an explosion of support for DMN: New and updated tools for DMN were everywhere last year with new modeling tools, new implementation-focused capabilities, DMN-based tooling within existing products and updates to software tools like our decision modeling software, DecisionsFirst Modeler, that have been supporting DMN from the beginning.

Advanced analytics and AI went mainstream

Advanced analytics and AI went mainstream in 2017. There’s increasingly an expectation that companies will be using these technologies to solve real business problems as the software tools and skills needed became increasingly available. Despite this, however, many companies are still struggling to deliver meaningful business value and to put advanced analytics and AI into production. Too many analytic projects are focused on technical not business results and too many leave deployment out of their project plans. Understanding the value of advanced analytics and AI is mainstream but delivery business value is still a work in progress for most. 

Digital business focus

Companies are increasingly focusing on their digital business. Successful digital programs extend their Digital Business Platforms with 3 critical elements: decision modeling, predictive analytics and business rules technology. By coordinating these technologies into a virtual decision hub, Decision Management automates and improves every digital interaction and delivers agile, data-driven, real-time outcomes.

2018 will see these trends accelerate

As we move into 2018 all these trends will accelerate and come together. Decision modeling with DMN shows how and where to apply analytics and AI and how this wide range of decision-making technologies available can be used together. The effective application of analytics and AI will increase the power of digital business platforms. Digital business platforms put the focus on business decisions – and on Decision Management – where it belongs.

Get started quickly with a pilot in 8-10 weeks

Our clients in claims, underwriting, marketing, origination and more have great success when starting with our our working example pilot. The pilot example clearly demonstrates the value proposition to the business stakeholders and the technical agility and robustness to the IT team. Contact us today to learn more.

BOSTON, MA – May 4, 2026 – Blue Polaris announced it has been awarded the North America Winner of the 2026 IBM Partner Plus Awards for the Transformational SaaS Application category at IBM Partner Plus Day during Think 2026. This award celebrates IBM business partners who demonstrated measurable improvements through efficiency, cost savings and productivity through IBM SaaS deployments.

 

“This recognition underscores the meaningful impact and innovation our partners are delivering across the IBM Ecosystem,” said Nicholas Rogers, GM of Americas Ecosystem at IBM. “We are proud to recognize Blue Polaris as a North America winner and celebrate the work they have done to help clients scale and accelerate AI outcomes through IBM services and solutions — over the past year and into the future.”

 

The IBM Partner Plus Awards recognize partners who deliver exceptional impact aligned with IBM’s strategic priorities. Thirty-four winners were selected from hundreds of global submissions across all geographies and seven categories. 

 

Partners eligible to win an award are part of IBM Partner Plus, a program designed to help deepen partners’ technical expertise, accelerate time to market and win with clients with AI and hybrid cloud. For more information on IBM Partner Plus, please visit www.ibm.com/partnerplus.