Cebon took control of AI usage and established a unified approach

Cebon is an international group with operations in the Nordic countries, Italy, France, and the Benelux region. The company develops and markets brands and solutions in the energy and security sectors, including battery solutions for industrial and consumer use, as well as fire protection products. With approximately 170 employees and revenue of nearly one billion kronor, Cebon has a strong focus on development and future growth.

The challenge

The need for structure, direction, and a common approach

Cebon recognized the potential of AI early on, but as its use grew, it became clear that work practices, tools, and levels of expertise varied across the organization. This created a need for a comprehensive approach to gain control and ensure that the technology was used in a business-oriented, consistent, and secure manner.

“We need to have a strategy; we can’t just hand out Copilot licenses. We need to understand how we’re actually going to use it in our business,” says Cathrin Lindström, IT and HR Director at Cebon.

The solution

Copilot Coach as part of a broader AI initiative

To bring structure to its AI efforts, Cebon chose to take a comprehensive approach in collaboration with Upheads. The partnership began with the development of a digital strategy that, among other things, set the direction for how AI would be used in the business and how the technology could contribute to the company’s business goals.

“It feels great that we met Upheads at this point. We have a good working relationship, and I think we can accomplish a lot going forward,” says Cathrin.

The next step was the Copilot Coach program, during which employees had the opportunity to explore Microsoft 365 Copilot in practice and establish a common framework for how the tool should be used within the organization. The focus was not only on learning the features, but also on developing habits and new ways of working that incorporate AI into daily tasks and contribute to more efficient work processes.

“It was really great that we had that training. It gave us a whole new understanding of just how much we can actually use Copilot in our work; for example, many of us saw significant time savings in Excel, both for analysis and for quickly creating formulas and templates,” says Cathrin.

After implementation, Cebon followed up on the initiative with its own evaluation to measure the impact of Copilot Coach.

“We conducted a survey before and after Copilot Coach and saw a clear increase in proficiency, regardless of the starting level. At the same time, many participants cited time savings as one of the biggest benefits,” Cathrin continues.

Among other things, the evaluation showed that:

• All participants improved their skills, regardless of their prior experience with Copilot.
• Its use evolved from simple queries in Copilot Chat to a more integrated role in workflows and processes.
• Time savings and increased efficiency were highlighted as the greatest benefits.
• The participants developed their ability to write effective prompts, which improved the quality of the results.
• All participants saw clear value in Copilot relative to its cost and planned to continue using the tool in their daily work.

After the training, it became clear that the value of Copilot varies by department, which laid the groundwork for the next step, where the focus is on developing work processes and methods for each function using tools such as AI agents.

“Copilot Coach also gave us a clearer direction moving forward. Now we want to take the next step and focus on how AI can be used in our work processes across different departments, not just at the individual level. We also became aware of AI agents and how they can take the burden off repetitive and time-consuming tasks. We see great opportunities there to continue developing our business together with Upheads,” Cathrin concludes.