Implied Logic is excited to announce a new freemium
strategy for accessing the internationally renowned STEM visual
software for reliable business modelling:
- a new and fully-functional demo system for small projects and study is now available
free of charge from our new online store, and
- a new, minimal-support annual subscription provides access to the established
Conventional STEM (C-STEM) desktop solution for just
GBP 330 p.a..
To sustain this move, we have also launched a new public
support forum which we will monitor to ensure that it answers all the most
common set-up and start-up questions. Our existing world-class consultative-support
services will continue to be available to clients with time-critical requirements
or confidential modelling questions via an add-on subscription.
We will be advertising a regular programme of free-to-attend online demonstrations
and more in-depth training webinars to complement our traditional on-site training
services for individual clients. We will be releasing a series of self-help videos,
and publishing a range of training materials which will be freely accessible on
our website.
With new group educational licences for students and a referral programme designed
to reward every STEM user for their community activities, we expect these changes
to make the established STEM modelling process familiar to a much wider audience.
All users will benefit from the incremental development that this will stimulate.
Help us achieve this aim by including the hashtag #STEM4free
wherever you blog about your experiences with the STEM software!
1. See what you can achieve with STEM for free
Our new free STEM demo package for the Windows operating system allows you to try
out every feature of the C-STEM platform up to a limit of ten
evaluators – that is, services, functions, resources and transformations.
This will be sufficient to test every possible interaction and complete a modest
business plan for a simple service with only a few cost headings, or a multi-segmented
service offering with minimal overheads. Students will be able to create examples
which demonstrate the most common concepts of business economics or engineering
finance in a visual format that facilitates dialogue and promotes learning and insight
instead of Excel programming.
Click for further outputs from a simple model with ten so-called
evaluators
The demo package is available as a free download from our online store; all you
need to do is register your details, validate your email, and then confirm your
order to access the download.
If you’re not sure about evaluators, have
a look at our recently revamped product
site to understand the interaction between these elements, and all the essential
calculations and results they will generate for you, out of the box.
2. A reasonable price for a business-aware solution
The essential value of the fully-fledged STEM platform is two-fold:
- enabling you and your colleagues to see the big picture of an intricate business
model, and to maintain focus on the strategic what-ifs in play
- extensive pre-validated business logic which keeps working as you iterate through
different business structures, and where the bottom line includes everything, guaranteed.
GBP 27.50 per month is a small price for the executive, consultant or entrepreneur
to pay for the benefit of reliable results now and the peace of mind that there
won’t be errors later.
When you are ready to step up, a number of annual subscription packages are available
in the same online store as the free demo. By using a respected third-party payment
platform, you can buy from us with confidence, knowing that your payment details
will not even touch our servers. There are discounts for team packages and you can
manage the soft-licence credentials for your subscription directly from your login
on our website.
C-STEM works exactly the same way as the free demo, so you can build on your early
learning examples directly. The larger, more detailed and rapidly evolving the model,
the greater the value that you will derive from STEM holding it all together for
you.
3. The new business model
STEM was originally targeted at planning teams in the telecommunications sector
where the corporate price tag was justified by the multi-million-dollar investments
being evaluated and the full-time roles in strategy and finance that would make
these very diligent assessments.
Business planning remains an essential activity for organisations of all sizes,
and in all sectors, and is increasingly important and urgent as technical innovation
accelerates and markets become more competitive. In the open-source era everyone
expects software to be affordable unless it is absolutely safety-critical. So STEM
must be immediately accessible and at a comparable price to the
Office tools it runs alongside to be a relevant offering in the 21st
century.
In parallel, the STEM modelling paradigm has become increasingly generic as a process
to translate a business model canvas to numbers, to the extent that its origin in
telecoms is by now more of a pedigree than a speciality. The new pricing strategy
reflects changing realities, against the value of a modelling paradigm which is
truly timeless, and should allow this value to be realised much more widely than
has been possible before. Now don’t forget that hashtag!