INPHASE Software and Balanced Scorecard Collaborative Announce PerformancePlus Certification

The Balanced Scorecard Collaborative (www.bscol.com), has announced that InPhasePerformancePlus has been designated as Balanced Scorecard Collaborative Certified. Under the terms of the certification, InPhase PerformancePlus is designated as compliant with Balanced Scorecard Functional Standards as maintained by The Balanced Scorecard Collaborative. The certification is designed to eliminate confusion in the marketplace through educating suppliers and buyers as to the important elements of a Balanced Scorecard management system.

Certification allows INPHASE to promote PerformancePlus as certified by the creators of the Balanced Scorecard and give INPHASE the right to use the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative certification mark on PerformancePlus and associated material. Further, the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative web site will identify PerformancePlus as certified software.

Dr. David P. Norton, president of Balanced Scorecard Collaborative said, "We have developed the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative Certified Program based on Balanced Scorecard Functional Standards to ensure that the Balanced Scorecard name maintains meaning, and that any investment made in associated software retains its value."

Users of certified Balanced Scorecard applications are assured that those applications are compliant with Balanced Scorecard Functional Standards, and can thus be used as the foundation of a strategic management system based on the Balanced Scorecard.

Ms. Laura M. Downing, vice president of Balanced Scorecard Collaborative said, "InPhase PerformancePlus is a powerful, comprehensive and flexible application that readily met our functional standards. We were delighted to see that InPhase have demonstrated the ability to provide an innovative product in this sector whilst holding fast to the tenets of the Balanced Scorecard as set out in our standards."

Mr Robert Hobbs, Chief Executive Officer of InPhase explains why PerformancePlus is uniquely different to many other applications, "INPHASE PerformancePlus is unique amongst Balanced Scorecard and Enterprise Performance Management applications in offering software support for the process of creating and managing Scorecards right from the initial brainstorming of the strategic objectives. It provides interactive cause and effect mapping of objectives and measures that in turn dynamically builds the required database structures without programmer intervention. We designed PerformancePlus around the core principles of ambition-based management. It can support any chosen combination of management approaches in use in world-class organizations, including Management By Objectives, Business Excellence Model, Process Improvement, Value Based Management, Competency Development such as Investors in People, and of course the Balanced Scorecard which we have worked with since 1992. Simultaneously with the Accreditation we are launching the fully web-enabled version of PerformancePlus powered by Microsoft BackOffice. We already had what most experts in the market recognize as the most powerful client-server application for Enterprise Performance Management, now it is available on the corporate intranet and via Application Service Providers, reducing an organizations up-front costs and providing predictable total cost of ownership."

The certification process consists of a demonstration of the product by the application provider, a documentation review, customer interviews, and a Balanced Scorecard Collaborative lab test. Application providers certified as a result of this process have the right to use the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative Certified mark.

Balanced Scorecard Functional Standards were announced on September 30, 1999 by Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, Inc., the organization that facilitates the worldwide awareness, use, enhancement, and integrity of the Balanced Scorecard as a value-added management process. The standards form the basis for certifying software from suppliers seeking to comply with the methodology of Dr. Robert S. Kaplan and Dr. David P. Norton, creators of the Balanced Scorecard concept..