In many leading companies, IT must provide tools to help the business respond to competition, comply with industry regulations, and engage customers. IT is expected to provide solutions that are high quality, flexible enough for rapid, frequent change, and available at predictable preferably low cost.

Custom software development and business automation are two ways to give business stakeholders the solutions they want, when they want them. But the two approaches have different benefits and drawbacks. Software development is an engineering discipline with rigorous, but historically slow, processes. Business automation reduces time to market by letting nontechnical stakeholders codify business logic, resulting in increased risk.

Advances in software development infrastructure and approaches provide the tools and opportunity to modernize business automation. A design approach that applies best practices from modern software development to business automation can help organizations take advantage of this opportunity by adding rigorous engineering practices while eliminating additional risk. Using this approach to business automation, businesses can engage subject matter experts to codify business logic in a way that ensures the higher quality, faster time to market, and lower, predictable cost associated with modern software development.