Case Study: Airbus achieves a scalable, company-wide innovation capability with HYPE Innovation

Creating a Core Innovation Capability

Airbus, a global aerospace leader with 133,000 employees, needed to move from fragmented, sporadic idea-sharing to a structured, end-to-end innovation capability that connected people across functions and aligned activity to corporate strategy. The challenge was to scale engagement, ensure ideas progressed to implementation, and make innovation part of day-to-day work rather than a side project.

Airbus Corporate Innovation launched IdeaSpace (HYPE’s platform) in 2010 and paired it with focused idea campaigns, always‑open idea channels, a catalyst and caretaker network, physical prototyping spaces and bootcamps, and a small dedicated team reporting to the CEO. Measured with a simple Inno‑ScoreCard (activity and impact), the program scaled rapidly—from a pilot to tens of thousands of users and a group‑wide roll‑out—generating thousands of ideas and comments, securing sponsor buy‑in, and creating a visible pipeline for faster implementation and sustained innovation.

Airbus

Markus Durstewitz

Corporate Innovation Manager