Airbus consolidates its communication with a new corporate website

The digital transformation of Airbus' Communications is underway

With more than 136,000 employees and turnover of €64 billion in 2015, the Airbus group is one of the world leaders in the aerospace sector.  As such, the manufacturer has initiated an ambitious digital transformation programme for its communications called COCONUT.

The main objective of this digital transformation programme is to make the same management and content publication platform available to all of Airbus' Communications teams. The challenges are of a strategic nature:

• To offer a new and customised experience to users (journalists but also enthusiasts) with a multi-channel approach focused on audiences
• To change the working methods of all of Airbus' Communications departments by breaking down barriers and putting contributors at the centre of the digital communications strategy in order to ensure that the platform's content is regularly enriched and shared by all
• To have a scalable and efficient platform with a modular applications core

This platform uses the Adobe Experience Manager solution, whose features enable the Airbus Communications' department to simply manage and publish content on all of its internal and external digital channels. It is thanks to its Adobe technological expertise that SQLI was picked by the aircraft manufacturer to help it put this new digital solution in place.
 

Launch of the website at the Paris Air Show

Airbus used the visibility of the Paris Air Show - a highlight in the aerospace sector's calendar - to launch its new website. It was a great success for the aircraft manufacturer's Communications, and has unveiled the first instalment of their digital transformation programme.

The website is based on a flexible, robust, and scalable platform, and is just the tip of the iceberg for a solution which already offers the option to manage the life cycle of content. This was shown in a very concrete way at the Paris Air Show - from taking photos on the tarmac to their distribution on the website in just a few minutes. The Digital Asset Management (DAM) module in particular has made it possible to centralise assets for more effective use at Airbus group level and ensure the consistency of messages across different media.

From the first stage to the Paris Air Show, or just 5 months after the start of this collaboration, SQLI was involved in a large part of the value chain: the architecture, development and production launch. It was a successful collaboration reflected by the full involvement of project teams as well as a very good ability to understand the professional issues and adapt the different sprints in view of Airbus' emergencies and constraints. The SQLI teams' agile approach was a key factor in the success of this international project.

This achievement reinforces SQLI's technological expertise with the Adobe application ecosystem as well as its ability to innovate and adapt in a complex environment to work on the entire value chain. Within the context of its partnership with Adobe, SQLI's ambition is to position the content at the very heart of its customers' digital system. 

"We particularly appreciated SQLI's ability to respond quickly. They are a partner which was flexible and innovative in their approach to a project which had to be delivered in record time.  SQLI quickly responded to issues and moved the project forward so that it could be completed in time.  Indeed, we had a deadline: the Paris Air Show. The teams were really involved, not only to improve performance but also in terms of their ability to adapt to our corporate culture. The use of the term partnership was very apt in this case. We went beyond the basic customer/supplier relationship," says Thierry Collin, Director of Airbus' Communications digital transformation programme 'Coconut'.

SQLI is continuing its collaboration with Airbus as part of the COCONUT programme, and in coming months there will be version 2 of the website, the roll-out of analytics and e-marketing modules, connections with internal communication tools and platform governance will be set up.