STL GmbH’s annual review for 2023

by | Jan 28, 2024 | STL Year in Review

Welcome to the year 2024!

And welcome to STL GmbH’s annual review of 2023! Compared to the previous year 2022, the past year was characterised somewhat less by conflicts, but by natural disasters. Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria and later in Morocco, fires on the Greek islands. Still later severe flooding in Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria. There was also no shortage of crises: From the attack on Israel to the ongoing war in Ukraine. In contrast, there was also good news: the coronavirus pandemic was officially declared over in Germany and the 49-euro ticket was introduced for public transport users. As STL GmbH, we – and of course our employees and customers – were moved by these topics.

For STL GmbH and our learning management and training management software cimoio, we are pleased to be able to close 2023 on a positive note.

This is particularly pleasing because STL GmbH celebrated its 20th anniversary! One of the highlights of the anniversary was that we won an eLearning Award 2024 with our KUKA LMS project.

New Year’s greetings to our customers

What is most important to us first:

Many thanks to our customers! To those that we were able to win over this year – and also those that have been loyal to us for years! This includes the great collaboration on exciting projects and the many interesting, serious, funny and very personal conversations. But also the trust that our customers place in us by providing us with a reference. This is not possible in every customer-supplier relationship – often you only see the name of the customer company. That’s why it’s so important for STL GmbH: Say *thank you*!

Fortunately, 2023 had few lows for STL GmbH, which is why we are using the start of the new year to review the good and bad moments.

The lows

Summary of the lows in STL GmbH’s annual review of 2023:

Where the GDL is slowing Germany down with strikes, we have continued to feel the brakes on acquisition decisions. Delays to projects into the following year. Budget cuts to compensate for inflation-related cost increases. Despite all this, we have been able to keep projects on track with our customers. So, concerning STL GmbH’s annual review for 2023, all in all not a bad result.

The Highs

Learntec 2023

Learntec 2023 at the end of May was exciting again – not least because the stand booking for the following year was a little different than usual this year.

We further optimised our stand construction. Also, we held interesting conversations with interested parties and existing customers at three discussion corners. Our customers were inspired by conversations to the right and left of the trade fair and approached us with new ideas. “Artificial intelligence” was a topic on everyone’s lips and was hotly debated – as it was, too, at our user meeting. We were able to further increase our conversion rate this year.

The number of visitors also rose again, even if it still hasn’t returned to pre-corona levels. According to Learntec, there will probably be around 13,500 visitors in 2023 compared to 11,000 in 2022 and 15,600 in 2020.

Next year’s Learntec 2024 will take place from Tuesday, 4 June to Thursday, 6 June 2023. You will find us – as always – in Hall 1, but this year at Stand D63.

cimoio user meeting 2023

Our 20th anniversary and the 14th user meeting should not be missing from STL GmbH’s annual review for 2023. We held it again at the Sparkassenakademie Baden-Württemberg in Stuttgart. This year, instead of a keynote speech, we had a cheerful collection of memories from the founding of STL GmbH to the present day. With various anecdotes from customers and employees.

The Visual Facilitators team was also there again, graphically documenting the event in real time.

We organised another afternoon in November with a summary of the event. We did this, because the demand for places again exceeded the capacity of the conference room and not everyone had time on the event date. This gave interested customers the opportunity to gain a compact overview. After all, an important feature of the collaboration between STL GmbH and our customers is that everyone benefits from cimoio developments. In order for this to succeed, however, it is important that everyone receives information about new functions and modules that have been added over time. Because in day-to-day project work, this distribution of information is sometimes simply neglected.

The 2024 user meeting has already been scheduled for Monday, 17 June and Tuesday, 18 June 2024.

Ein Selfie der Teilnehmenden aus dem Tagungsraum der Sparkassenakademie Baden-Württemberg.

The good mood at the 2023 user meeting was noticeable and visible!

The graphic documentation of the User Meeting 2024 by the Visual Facilitators

Retreat 2023

In October 2023, we took an extraordinary measure. For the important Release 4.0, we wanted to prepare! This Release is currently being rolled out to the first customers. But it was necessary to carry out large-scale work on the backend. To enable our colleagues to work on this without disruption, we flew to Mallorca for a week. On that enchanting spanish island, we were able to combine the useful with the beautiful. While we drove forward the improvements to our learning management and training management software cimoio during the day, we spent our breaks and evenings socialising as a team.

And indeed, when we returned, most of the cimoio backend reorganisation had been completed. Meaning, we were able to continue with the work on details back in Bad Cannstatt.

52nd Contact Fair Informatik-Forum Stuttgart

Once again this year, we attended the Informatics Forum Stuttgart contact fair at the University of Stuttgart to recruit new employees. There we talked to computer science students about a possible collaboration. We received several applications and were able to recruit a new colleague.

Releases

In 2023, we published release 3.9.5. This release is the last in Major Release 3 and will be supported for another two years. New systems will only be delivered on major release 4.x. This is currently being rolled out to the first customers – as our New Year’s greetings are a little late this year.

Release 3.9.5 includes, for example, more in-depth functions for managing external trainers as resources, process models and the new configurable start page.

eLearning Award in the “Project Management” category

And at the end of the year, we received some good news from Siepmann Media, who publish the eLearning Journal. The jury was impressed by our “KUKA LMS” project with KUKA in Augsburg. We received the eLearning Award 2024 in the “Project Management” category for the project, which was launched in 2015.

Do you have any feedback?

If you have any questions about our review or would like further information, please use the contact form to let us know what you think!

STL GmbH with cimoio at Learntec 2023

STL GmbH with cimoio at Learntec 2023

by | Apr 20, 2023 | Learntec, Trade Fairs

On 23.05. is the STL GmbH with cimoio at the Learntec 2023 in the exhibition center in Karlsruhe!

STL GmbH has been a guest at Learntec with a stand every year for several years. Learntec calls itself “the digital education fair” and thus describes its claim to cover all aspects:

  • From school and university education to vocational training, further education, and further training in the corporate sector
  • technical solutions but also methodical ones
  • with classic methods and current ones – but also with methods that are still in the research stage
  • an exchange between providers and potential customers, but also between providers
Banner von der Learntec. Es beschreibt den Standort des Stands der STL GmbH. Der befindet sich in Halle 1, Stand C56

It is not without reason that since 2022, instead of the previous two, three halls have now been made available at the trade fair in Karlsruhe. This way they are able to give space to this broad variety of topics. There is space here for vendor stands. But also stages for lectures, areas for trying things out and, of course, a conference area. There, specific practical approaches from users of the technologies and methods are presented.

After the Corona break, during which Learntec took place digitally, the trade fair takes place again in person since 2022. With 11,000 visitors, it has not yet reached the visitor level of the previous year. But it has nevertheless shown that it has lost none of its relevance – read our follow-up report paragraph on last year’s Learntec in last year’s review for details.

History of STL GmbH at Learntec

STL GmbH is represented with cimoio at Learntec 2023 for the seventh time. As the company continues to grow, our stand at the show has also grown steadily – as has the visiting team.

We initially had a small stand, which was then only looked after by one person. But we now rent 16 square meters of space. With this size, we can have more technical discussions with interested visitors with three employees.

Last year we also took the opportunity to present a trend topic of the year, “Hybrid Events” on stage. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to do that again this year due to lack of time. But the next Learntec will definitely come!

Participation with a larger stand at Learntec

The change in our brand name certainly brought the greatest impetus to further expand our commitment. After we had renamed our product from ecadiaPro to cimoio in 2021, it was important for us to successfully transfer the trust of our customers from the “old product” into the “new product”. An also to introduce the name well into the market. And where better than at Learntec? Here we meet many of our existing customers, where they collect inspiration and find out about new methods. But also many interested parties. These, with their questions about our product, also give us important impulses as to where the market is currently moving.

Stand of STL GmbH on the Learntec 2023 before Opening of the fair.

Positioning of STL GmbH with cimoio

STL GmbH with the integrated training and learning management software cimoio has a permanent place at Learntec. Especially in the field of operational knowledge transfer. The strengths of cimoio lie on the one hand in the regulation or the administration and documentation of any combination around compulsory training. And on the other hand in any form of blended learning. cimoio has been on the market – previously under other brand names – for exactly 20 years – the previous software even longer. During this time, we have perfected processes and procedures in the administration of face-to-face training, including the management of rooms, technical resources, and trainer. Manageing these was actually the starting point for the cimoio software.

But we have moved with the times and have all the movements from the introduction of e-learning (sometimes also called “WBTs” for “web-based training”), their combination in blended approaches and (even before Corona) the connection of communication software such as vitero, GoTo-Webinar or MS Teams (or more precisely: use of Microsoft Graph).

cimoio, the integrated TMS and LMS

Overall, we have both the functions of a training management software (TMS) for the administration of all processes in education management, such as:

  • Design of training products for the portfolio
  • Organizing scheduled events including resource management
  • Management of participant registrations for digital products, scheduled events, and blended learning
  • Documentation of the current status of training measures, in particular to comply with regulations
  • Communication processes can be manual, semi-automated or fully automated as required
  • Functions for billing or billing depending on the business model
  • Extensive and detailed reporting

… as well as the functions of a learning management software (LMS), as an interface to all actors involved, especially the learners, whether internal or external, such as:

  • Customized portals with views and functions for the defined target group, e.g.:
    • Learner portal for learners with functions and views focused on current and past learning measures with a library of previously made available learning materials
    • Trainer portal with calendar to view future training courses, optionally also with a view of the trainer team
    • Booking portal for managers or customers with a view of the booking history
    • Employee portal that combines the functions of the learner portal with those of the booking portal so that employees can manage their further training independently
  • Self-service functions according to requirements, such as:
    • Education history with past trainings in all formats
    • Booking functions controlled by roles, target groups and clients
      • For executives: booking for team members is also possible
    • Status information on compulsory training
    • Planning view with future training courses
  • Access to digital learning media and online sessions via communication software

Industries that use cimoio

STL GmbH is at Learntec 2023 with cimoio – together with our attitude “implement ideas”. This means the implementation of ideas from and for our customers, we primarily meet the needs of customer companies that have complex requirements from their learning ecosystem. These are usually not met by common solutions on the market. Our brand essence is to accept and implement these challenges.

Our customer structure primarily revolves around four sectors in which certain challenges appear in different forms.

The four sectors in which we have the most customer companies are aviation (e.g., Lufthansa Technik Logistik Services (LTLS)), training providers (e.g., the JARO Academy of the JARO Institute), manufacturing (e.g., KUKA) or the retail sector, banks, and insurance companies (e.g., the Savings Banks Academy of the Savings Banks Association of Baden-Württemberg or the VGH).

 

cimoio strengths and branches

Some of the topics already mentioned above, in which cimoio is a leader, are:

  • Regulation/mandatory training – this topic is relevant for all industries, e.g., for legal training on topics such as data protection or compliance.
    • In aviation, in addition, various topics in vocational training are firmly regulated by the Federal Aviation Authority, which entails special challenges
    • In the banking and insurance sector, the topics of “investment” are strongly influenced by the IDD and “financial transactions” in relation to money laundering prevention.
    • In industry, training on the product is necessary to rule out safety hazards for users
    • Training providers can be certified in various aspects, which can also regulate requirements for the implementation of the documentation of training courses.
  • Blended learning – the use of any mixture of different training formats such as online or offline, digital, or face-to-face
    • The use cases differ slightly from industry to industry as far as the reason for the implementation as blended learning is concerned.
    • In the implementation, cimoio offers various product templates to efficiently obtain the optimal desired result for each application.
  • cimoio as an educational marketplace
    • A growing number of our customer companies not only use self-generated learning content. They supplement their training portfolio with externally procured content.
    • This content is sometimes available on the platforms of the external suppliers, which we then connect or are imported into cimoio
    • In general, we can import entire third-party catalogues.
    • On the other hand, some of our customers have different customer groups who are offered different parts of the overall portfolio.
    • cimoio enables this via target group or client separation
    • In this respect, cimoio is a marketplace where self produced and third-party services are provided for internal or external customers. The offer to customers can in turn be segmented by target groups or clients.

Objective of the STL GmbH at the Learntec

We are really looking forward to meeting our existing customers at the fair and talking to them about the inspirations they gathered at the fair.

We are also curious about interested parties and their hopes and expectations regarding our software. To our delight, we received requests for appointments even before the trade fair. Therefore, we are already looking forward to the next challenges.

And finally, we are also interested in seeing what other providers have come up with, what trends are currently being followed in the market and what buzzwords are coming up this year.

Do you have questions?

Want to find out more or reserve a time slot with us? Then use the comment function, send us an inquiry via the contact form or send us an email directly.