Introduction
Fraport AG is one of the Top 10 largest Airport Companies operating a global network of 29 airports worldwide, driving innovation across aviation, infrastructure, technology and services. The Digital Factory is Fraport's internal Hub for Digital Transformation. The team supports business units globally in identifying trends, developing technologies, and scaling new solutions with external partners.
The Challenge
Fraport's Digital Factory has been busy since 2021– really busy. They have successfully delivered over 60 digital and innovation projects across all operational segments in just 4 years!
However, growth brought complexity. As the project portfolio expanded, manual coordination across departments, technologies, and partners became increasingly difficult to manage. The team found themselves constrained in the number of initiatives they could pursue each year.
The solution was clear: implement a Venture Clienting platform that would integrate Trend discovery, Technology scouting, and Startup collaboration into a single system. The objectives were to reduce manual effort, increase transparency across projects, automate with AI, and strengthen Fraport's open innovation culture through more efficient integration of external technologies and startups.
Why Crowdworx
Fraport selected Crowdworx for its comprehensive, end-to-end platform that covers all critical venture clienting activities – from idea collection and trend, tech & startup scouting through to project implementation and scaling – while meeting Fraport's stringent IT security and GDPR requirements.
Complete Workflow Coverage
Crowdworx supports every phase of the Digital Factory's innovation process:
· Idea and trend collection – Providing visibility into emerging ideas, technology trends, and new business models.
· Scoping – Enabling collaborative project development between Fraport departments.
· Scouting – Offering access to Startup and Technology databases for identifying suitable partners.
· Implementation – Supporting evaluation, contracting, and execution through integrated workflows and templates.
· Scaling – Facilitating the rollout of successful pilots across the Fraport Group through standardized processes.
Improved Efficiency and Transparency
The platform provides a centralized dashboard for analytics, KPIs, and process monitoring, allowing the Digital Factory team to track progress across all projects and innovation phases. This has significantly reduced manual coordination while maintaining consistent project quality and visibility.
Integration with existing systems
The platform offers integration with Fraport’s enterprise products such as SharePoint, Oracle and Microsoft Teams, ensuring smooth collaboration and information security.
Crowdworx also allows re-use of existing templates and email formats, streamlining documentation and reducing repetitive tasks.
Data compliance and security
With built-in GDPR and IT Security Act compliance, Crowdworx met Fraport’s strict data protection and IT infrastructure requirements.
Role-based access ensures data visibility according to Digital Factory roles, safeguarding sensitive partner and project information.
Built for Growth
The architecture enables easy extension of the system with additional scouting sources, trend repositories, or partner databases, ensuring long-term scalability as Fraport's venture clienting approach evolves.
Trend Scouting
A critical component of Fraport's venture clienting process is the structured identification of market and technology trends that could shape future airport operations. Crowdworx provides configurable trend repositories with categorization, evaluation and trend monitoring, enabling the Digital Factory to collect signals from various sources, organize them by strategic relevance, and forward them to business units as catalysts for new projects. This way, forward-thinking research flows directly into Fraport's innovation pipeline.
Technology Scouting
Fraport needed a systematic approach to discover and evaluate emerging technologies in key areas such as logistics, sustainability, and passenger experience. Crowdworx supports this through structured evaluation workflows and multi-criteria assessment templates aligned with the Digital Factory's methodology. Each technology is documented with readiness levels, business impact assessments, and other customized categories, creating a clear foundation for pilot selection and investment decisions.
Startup Collaboration
Connecting with startups is central to Fraport's open innovation strategy. Crowdworx makes this easier through integration with startup databases and AI-powered sourcing, allowing users to search for companies by technology domain, maturity level, or industry relevance. Once identified, startups can be directly onboarded into the Digital Factory workflow for evaluation, contracting, and implementation. This integrated approach shortens the journey from "interesting company" to "active partner" and helps scale successful collaborations across the Fraport Group.
The Results
By implementing Crowdworx, Fraport's Digital Factory gained a single, transparent, data-driven platform for managing trend scouting, technology discovery, and startup collaboration – all in one transparent, data-driven ecosystem.
The outcome is up to 2× faster, more scalable venture clienting process. That enables Fraport to continuously engage with external innovation, collaborate more effectively across departments without a double work, and accelerate the implementation of new technologies throughout the organization.
