Do companies need a ‘community of innovators’?

If they want to survive, yes. Companies - no matter their size - need to embed innovation within the organization. In words of Klaus Schwab : "In the new world, it is not the big fish which eats the small fish, it's the fast fish which eats the slow fish."
During the last few years, the market dynamics have changed completely the way innovation is built around the world. Yesterday, innovation was about R&D and companies with enough resources to design complex technologies and create competitive advantages and run years ahead of their competitors. Several examples from the last few years illustrate that it now takes less time than ever to build a large company. In just five years after launch, Facebook’s valuation was 15B USD (2004-2009) and Uber’s 40B USD (2009-2014). Looking at the time required to reach 1B USD in revenue from inception, Dell took 9 years (1984-1993), Office Depot took 5 years (1986-1991) and Groupon took only 2 years (2008-2010).
The main consequence of this new market reality is the speed required for innovation. Thus, if a company wants to maintain a strong position within its industry while defending itself from external threats, it is mandatory to design, reward and maintain a deep presence of an innovation culture that is fully embedded throughout the organization. This is the main challenge that big corporations need to face: they need to evolve if they want to survive. When an innovation opportunity arises in such companies, it’s very common to see the “corporate antibodies” entering the room kicking and attacking the innovation [ ... ]