16 October will be the UK launch for Performance Point 2007 which is going to illicit three reactions:

• Fantabidozoo it's out at last!
• Oh oh Microsoft have released another thingy that costs half as much as our whatsit so let's get marketing to tell everyone that it doesn't scale for the enterprise and it won't be any good until sp1 comes out.
• What? Never heard of it!  So you do a live search on "Performance Point" and you get a lot of car stuff and there's also an outfit in California providing business coaching and actually this is quite relevant.

This coaching company Performance Point have identified a number of symptoms for ailing businesses:

1. You have a vision for your business, but you don't know how to get there.

2. Sales are flat or declining. Sales are below budget.

3. Long-term customers have left. They are doing business with your competitors.

4. Profits are declining.

5. Companies in your industry are expanding or changing. Your business is not.

6. You are working longer and longer hours.

7. There is never enough time in the day to accomplish all of the things that must get done.

8. The business no longer meshes with your values and interests.

9. The business has become too complex for you to handle by yourself.

10. The business is no longer any fun.

11. There are frequent problems with your staff.

12. The best employees are leaving.

13. Problems are occurring in your personal life.

14. You feel you as though you are in a rut.

15. You dread going to work each day.

I am not going to pretend that a new piece of software is going to crack all of these issues but it will help with the first dozen, so you will have more time to work on the last three yourself.  But how is a piece of software going to help? well it does three things:

• It allows you to analyse and monitor your performance. so you can see what is contributing to falling sales and reduced profits.
• Set and plan your balanced scorecards and have these cascade through the organisation so everyone can see how their efforts contribute to the success of the organisatons.
• Plan and forecast your budgets from a top down or bottom up approach so you can see what resources are needed to meet objectives.

Whether you decide to get some coaching or buy some business intelligence software  you do have to actually apply the findings and lessons learned to your situation before anything will change.