Approaches to the Enterprises’ Competitiveness Assessment: Theoretical Aspect

Nowadays, Russian enterprises operate in a constantly changing environment which requires fundamentally new approaches to managing business activities. Increasing competition, increasing consumer demands for products, and the instability of the economic environment greatly complicate the management process, and development prospects are losing their predictability. In these conditions, important are the development and implementation of competitive advantages that would allow enterprises to operate sustainably in the market in the long term. This contribution investigates development stages of competition theories with the systematization of the studied approaches to its definition. The inextricable link between competition and competitiveness is revealed, in accordance with this, a task arose in defining its essence, which led to a comparative analysis of the research of economists. That allows the authors to obtain a deeper understanding of issues on the assessment of the competitiveness of enterprises carried out on the basis of various methods. Particular attention is paid to assessing the competitive environment using M. Porter’s five forces model, as an effective tool for studying exactly what threats a company faces in a competitive environment. The levels of ensuring the competitiveness of an enterprise are described. To identify the most suitable methodology, advantages and disadvantages of each of them were examined, on the basis of which a conclusion is drawn about the need for a holistic, integrated approach to assessing and analyzing the competitiveness of a business entity.