Meet Ebba Rosander

May 2021

During the internship Ebba will also work on a global project together with a few other students in the program. The project revolves around future business models for software services.

“I have always been fascinated by the motor vehicle industry and was looking for an opportunity to work in an international team with fun and interesting challenges. I had heard great things about Atlas Copco’s ways of working and the culture, so I applied,” says Ebba when asked about the reasons for participating in the internship.  

Ebba explains that she has gained a lot of insight in how the company is organized during the first weeks of the internship. She has also become more familiar with some of the tools and software services used in the division and gotten a feel for the warm and welcoming culture. Going forward, she expects to learn even more about the division, the customers’ needs and challenges. 

July 2021

With the new demands of industry 4.0, data and software have become increasingly important for Atlas Copco’s clients. Just as the industry is changing, so are customers’ needs. Our project goal is to recommend a future business model for Atlas Copco’s software services in the manufacturing industry. We are therefore reevaluating at how Atlas Copco could sell software in the future.

My role in this project is as project leader. I try to ensure that the team is aligned and that we follow our dedicated project plan. The role includes contacting and organizing meetings with our project sponsor as well as with our supervisors. It also means following up on the team’s weekly action points as well as giving support to team members whenever this is needed. 

To determine the best choice of business model we’ve gathered information from different sources. Early on, we for example conducted several internal interviews with employees to get a better understanding of what they believe is the best way forward. We have also done desktop research to identify market trends that potentially could affect the choice of business model. Apart from that we have reviewed how some of our industrial peers offer their software and we have also spoken with existing customers to determine how they would prefer to buy software.

The biggest challenge in all of this has been to coordinate our activities and make sure that we as a project team has understood the tasks and results in a similar way. To make it easier for us, I as project leader, made a visual project plan where each activity was presented and a timeline showing how much time and effort that was needed to finish the task. We also schedule regular meetings twice a week to make sure that we are aligned as a team. 

My project group consists of six people, all from Asia or Europe, and we are in daily contact. My manager is also my project supervisor, which makes it easy to bounce ideas on teams or in the office with him. In addition to the mentioned interaction, we have also contacted and held interviews with colleagues, local customer centers and with customers in different locations in the world. It’s been interesting to learn about people’s different perceptions about our project and to hear their ideas. Our colleagues in China and Sweden have for example mentioned very different behaviors and preferences from their respective clients. 

That Atlas Copco is a decentralized company where competence and knowledge is spread out in the whole company. The business culture here supports the organizational structure and you are encouraged to ask questions and to interact with people worldwide. Everyone is really helpful and supportive.

August 2021

We managed to identify a future business model suitable for software for Atlas Copco. Our sponsors and other stakeholders were happy with the results. Our recommendation was supported by findings from both a market and internal perspective. 

It has been insightful. I have learned a lot about myself as a leader, other cultures and more about our business project topic. By working on a project from start to finish, the team and I experienced all kinds of challenges and learned a lot on the way. 

People here are warm and welcoming. The company is very decentralized and international, and you are therefore frequently in contact with people in different parts of the world. A key element of working at Atlas Copco is therefore networking.

I also think that Atlas Copco values work life balance. This contributes to a feeling of being supporting by colleagues and a good atmosphere. In addition, you are given responsibility early on which is both challenging and encouraging. 

It’s been a great opportunity to learn what it’s like to work in an international environment. When working in an international project team, setting expectations of what is to be done, by whom, when and how is very important. In the beginning, we all had different understandings of things which caused a bit of confusion and delay in the project.

I have also improved my leadership skills and increased my knowledge of different types of revenue streams, and stakeholder’s view of them.

I think the most fun and rewarding part of the project was to talk to Atlas Copco employees all over the world and to learn about their perception of our project. It became very clear that different people view our project differently and highlight different things as important when it comes to a business model for software.