OSSA: Forming and Launching a New Initiative in the Security & Safety Industry

In 2017, Bosch Building Technologies approached Inventures with a novel concept: create a service model for physical security and safety devices. This concept would encompass a vast array of devices, including surveillance cameras, access control devices, fire alarms and smoke detectors. This new service model would require the collaboration of many companies to develop the necessary specifications, create a collaborative approach to common challenges, and ultimately establish a thriving ecosystem with the size and credibility needed to ensure success for the industry.

In order to determine the best way to deliver this new concept to the industry, strategic analysis was required. Inventures collaborated with Bosch on the first phase of the Inventures Alliance Formation process – Assess & Align. In this phase, Inventures and Bosch reviewed all of the possible collaboration entity options. Would a limited liability corporation, a joint venture, or a technology alliance be the right entity type for global collaboration? Once a technology alliance was selected, work began to define the foundation for the alliance including an initial mission, vision and value proposition for prospective alliance members. Based on the results of the first phase, Bosch decided to proceed with the formation process and move on to second phase, Structure.

During the Structure Phase, Inventures and Bosch, worked with four additional founding stakeholders: Hanwha Techwin, Milestone Systems, Pelco and VIVOTEK, to create the legal and structural framework for the proposed new alliance. Additionally, a funding platform was developed and the mission, vision, and value propositions were refined and membership tiers were assigned benefits with input from the founding stakeholders. Once the organizational structure was set, the stakeholders agreed to progress to the final phase, Launch Preparation

During this phase of the formation process Inventures and the founding stakeholders:

• Developed a 12-month operational plan
• Incorporated the new organization
• Activated a bank account and financial management system
• Instantiated the Board of Directors and held the first Board meeting
• Created a website
• Publicly launched and announced the new alliance
• Recruited additional members

The culmination of this work is the Open Security & Safety Alliance (OSSA). OSSA launched with the five founding stakeholders and early adopter members Ambarella Inc., Anixter Inc., AndroVideo, Kings Security Systems Ltd and NetApp. These companies began sharing their knowledge and expertise within this global alliance to build standards, specifications, best practices, references and implementation guidelines that will be required to meet the vision and mission of OSSA.

Since the launch of the OSSA in 2018, Inventures has provided a variety of services designed to help the alliance meets its mission and grow its ecosystem. OSSA relies on our membership management, financial services, marketing services, member meeting services, tradeshows and events, executive leadership, global headquarters services, workgroup collaboration and web/IT services. These services enable OSSA to stay focused on its mission to create a framework to provide standards and specifications for common components for data security and privacy, and a drive for improved levels of performance for security and safety solutions.