Telenor

Quick Facts

• Telenor is an international operator company with a 165-year history. Today, the company operates in eight countries in Scandinavia and Asia, with approximately 11,000 employees and 209 million operator customers.
• As a long-time user of Microsoft systems, the company started testing the Microsoft 365 Copilot tool among the first, even before Microsoft officially launched the product. 
• Telenor aims to become an AI-centric organization, and they currently have many AI-related projects underway.

Telenor is an international operator company with a 165-year history. Today, the company operates in eight countries in Scandinavia and Asia, with approximately 11,000 employees and 209 million operator customers.

Telenor was interested in utilizing AI from the beginning when the hype around ChatGPT began. As a long-time user of Microsoft systems, the company started testing the Microsoft 365 Copilot tool among the first, even before Microsoft officially launched the product. This early start gave the company a good understanding of the product’s possibilities right from the start.

“Telenor aims to become an AI-centric organization, and we currently have many AI-related projects underway. We have a strong desire to stay at the forefront of development and understand the benefits and challenges,” commented Uzair Shahid, Head of Telenor’s Collaboration & SecOps unit. “Copilot interacts extensively with data, so we also paid a lot of attention to data security. The reception has been enthusiastic, and the results encouraging.”  

DNA, a subsidiary, was the first to order Copilot licenses. The company understood that skilled help was needed for the tool’s implementation, and Sulava was chosen as a partner from Microsoft’s offered options.  

“Initially, we thought we could handle the implementation on our own, but we quickly realized that we needed help for that. Sulava had a well-structured way of working, and with their help, we gained concrete understanding of the investment’s value and Copilot’s potential. For example, creating user profiles and ROI calculations helped understand the reality behind the general, and also Microsoft’s, hype,” Uzair continued.

The pilot was a learning experience

In the initial phase of Telenor’s Copilot pilot, about 300 employees from various parts of the organization were involved. Currently, the number of users has already risen to 500 it consists mainly of employees from Finland, Sweden and Global group functions. There are also some users already in Asia. Telenor units in Norway and Denmark are still conducting security assessments but are soon joining the Copilot bandwagon.

According to user surveys, the main uses of Copilot at Telenor are related to finding, searching, and summarizing information from emails and documents. AI has also been sought to help with the blank page syndrome, i.e., Copilot helps get started. Creating meeting notes based on meeting recordings has also been widely utilized, allowing employees to fully focus on meetings.

“Telenor was one of the first customers to participate in the pilot, so this project was a real learning experience for all of us,” said Mikko Torikka, Sulava’s solution area architect and project service manager.

“In the beginning, despite the hype, the product was not yet completely ready and, for example, the support for Nordic languages ​​was not very strong. However, based on the pilot, we were able to calculate that Copilot saves an average of eight hours of work time per month, which brings significant savings. We got a very realistic picture of the whole from the pilot, and experiences have been shared with the other parts of the organization,” said Jesse Alastalo, who works in the joint IT department of DNA and Telenor.

Ninjas inspired and supported

On Sulava’s recommendation, the Community model was utilized in the pilot’s implementation, where community members acted as active promoters of change and supported other users with the skills they learned in community training.

At Telenor, community members are called Ninjas. They are employees of the organization who, in addition to training for all users, participate in their own training to increase AI skills and initiate cultural change. About 10% of active and particularly enthusiastic users were selected for this group.

“The starting point of our Copilot Adoption Service (CAS) is to offer mindset-changing training to all users. Due to the size of Telenor’s organization and the way licenses are distributed, the community model was useful for them in the early stages of Copilot implementation,” commented Emma Klén, Sulava’s senior consultant.

“A project like this is primarily about changing people’s mindset, not a technology project. Ninjas successfully acted as curiosity awakeners, breeders of courage, and collaboration culture promoters. This is exactly what our CCC (curiosity, courage, collaboration) philosophy is based on, and these elements were included at Telenor with the help of active Ninjas.”

According to Jesse Alastalo, the support of the Ninjas was also vital from the management’s perspective.

“Keeping such user communities active is really difficult and requires a lot of commitment, which the Ninja model brought a great addition,” Alastalo said. “The broad enthusiasm created by the Ninjas was also strongly reflected in the final report we made for the group’s management.”

After the pilot

After the pilot phase in the spring of 2024, Telenor conducted more minor implementations and carried out new training sessions with the help of Sulava to facilitate continued use. The products have also received numerous updates, and the company is now considering the implementation of the Copilot Studio product.

“After the pilot phase, we have organized workshops with Sulava, where we delved deeper into people’s daily work processes and created use cases from the perspective of individual users. We have also organized additional training for leaders who have not yet tried using AI,” Alastalo said. “We are also interested in the Copilot Studio product and are currently investigating its possibilities.”

Structured collaboration with Sulava

The cooperation between Telenor, DNA and Sulava has already started in the integration phase of the companies’ systems in 2019. The Copilot project collaboration has been fruitful and structured.

“The cooperation has been very functional,” commented Alastalo. “We have been honest, open, and transparent in everything, and Sulava has creditably delivered everything we need.

According to Uzair Shahid, Sulava’s commitment to the project has been commendable.

“We have been quite a demanding customer, for example, regarding our comprehensive management reports, and Sulava has responded to our requirements with commitment and structure. The training and leadership sessions have received good feedback. Sulava’s approach has created motivation for learning, which is key in such a project,” Uzair said.

Author: Juhani Lassila
Published February 2025