No doubt on this - 'strategy' meanwhile is commonly used as a buzzword and the business world is full of 'strategy words'. Obviously really anybody working in any business in any region of the world talks about strategy. And everybody seems to be well informed and seems to know what it is, how it works and what is the right thing to do in the realm of business strategy - where one has to admit that it's unclear from where people did get their knowledge. Hence it might be time and also senseful to hold on a minute and think about strategy.

• What exactly is a strategy ?
• From where did strategic thinking come originally ?
• What is to learn and to know about strategy ?

We'd just like to give you one of the clearest definitions of "strategy", ever written on a piece of paper. Due to the fact that in this field, strategies were studied over thousands of years, a definition as a military term is admissible. Business strategies have been studied since only 50 years so may be business can learn something from the military: 

Tactics are the lessons about usage
          of forces for the purpose of a combat.
Strategy is the lesson about usage
          of combats for the purpose of the war.
Tactics belongs primarily to the realm of science.
Strategy belongs primarely to the realm of art.
Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz, 1780-1831,
prussian General and famous author of "On war"

Clausewitz' definition just makes clear that a strategy is the overall way to succeed the 'big game'. It is the fundamental ground of a business units model. To think about business strategies means to think about the core of entrepreneurial activities. However, leaders throughout human history asked themselves again and again the same questions: How can I succeed when it comes to fundamental challenges to lead my folks ? Those leaders trained each other in schools for strategy. They wrote about strategy as Sun Tzu did 2.500 years ago. They even invented strategy games such as Chess, named game of the kings, and Go - games which tried to mirror the real worlds complexity. However they also realized that strategy is just essential and needs knowledge and experience. Where the vast majority of nowadays business people just relies on intuition and ideas only. But is intuition and ideas really enough ? From where does intuition come and on what is it based ? Most people will not be able to give a clear answer here.

But may be there are 'born leaders' ?

Unofficial estimations now say that from the 16 categories of the Myer-Briggs-Type-Indicator of temperaments there are only 2% of "field marshalls" among the population of "business countries". Even if one implies that amongst business leader's the field marshals share is higher, there's nevertheless the presumption that most of managers and entrepreneurs are mainly non-strategic thinkers. That is what is to observe in the real business world too:

Most managers tend to do things right
instead doing the right things.
Peter Drucker, 1909-2005,
was one of the world's leading management experts

A frank statement now has to summarize that the vast majority of decision makers in business don't have the skills neither are they 'born leaders'. Nonetheless they make the decisisions.

This fact is astonishing, just because real strategic thinking and acting is, what makes the biggest difference between the real successful leaders and the less successful. And this exactly is the reason for TSSF to concentrate straight on the strategic topics of business activities.

It's nearly a decade ago that TSSF proved by a sensational survey analyzing more than 220 small and medium sized companies from germany, austria and switzerland how essential a great business strategy is for a company. The study clearly has proven that a gap in strategy management is by far the most important and the basic reason why companies stumble and get into a crises.

• Strategy determines earnings.
• Earnings determine cash flow.
• Cash flow determines insolvency situations.

It takes between 5 and 7 years for a company from a gap in strategy management until a insolvency situation occures. And trends at nearly all analyzed companies where likewise. Not real differences at all.

But meanwhile things have gotten even more difficult for business leaders. The global economy changes business in all branches and all parts of the world. Further changes such as impacts from the internet and political changes cause additional changes. Whole branches disappear, get melted with other branches and change their structures within only a couple of years. The TIME-sector (TIME = telecommunications + internet + media + entertainment) is only one of many examples here. Chances and risks increase likewise for start ups as for the whales - all over the world.

Hence, facing all the facts mentioned above, TSSF focuses straight on the essential issues of todays business: business strategy, internationalization, corporate finance and venture capital, strategic alliances and mergers & acquisitions. And TSSF concentrates on the economically most important world regions China, India, Brazil and their business relations to the worlds biggest market: Europe.

We work on special topics to realize ambitious plans such as supporting the shaping and fine tuning of business models, building international alliances, opening up new markets, procuring and management of M&A deals and capital procurement. We develop strategies and we work on whatever is essential to get outstanding and ambitious strategies up to speed.

For good reasons, TSSF is not limited to only a particular sort of contractual collaboration with entrepreneurs. There might be a situation where a longterm agreement is preferred and participation by share options is the choice of both parties. There might be another situation where capital procurement can be recompensed by a percentage fee. And there might be further situations where reaching of short term goals is not directly dependent from TSSF's work and a time based fee is the best choice. So, depending on current needs and negotiation we can act in various formal roles as the frame of our contributions.

Cooperation is independent from our role as a service provider, a business incubator, an investor, a co-entrepreneur, a member of boards of directors, an agent or any other role, high-producing for both contractual partners. In our network are experts for several functional specializations and from different world regions as also investment companies, private equity firms, venture capital firms and law firms.

My personal concern with TSSF is, to build bridges between companies from the upcoming world regions and europe to realize an integrated economy of powerful companies driven by outstanding characters and with benefits for all. It is time now to get into 'internationalization 2.0' where SMEs and mid cap companies can follow the footprints of the giants and adopt their methods to reach maximum success. TSSF was founded to enable bold moves for ventures which otherwise were not feasable.

With straight strategic thinking and acting there are stunning chances and enormous potentials for the small and mid cap companies, but feasible only by real leaders and a proactive management. If they manage like the big ones they'll be at an advantage because of their other strengths. But if they won't do it, they have to accept to be at an profoundly disadvantage and could lose.

Vitesse, vitesse, activité !
(pace, pace, action !)
Napoléon I. Bonaparte, 1769-1821,
French Emperor, Conqueror of Europe

Overall, TSSF is an up-front invitation to real entrepreneurs for a lasting and inspiring cooperation and common work on common success - on any thinkable level of entrepreneurial activities.