Innovative Activity of Enterprises in the Agricultural Sector as the Efficiency Criterion of Its Production and Economic Potential

Abstract

Nowadays, an urgent issue for Ukrainian agricultural enterprises is the need for rational organization of their production and economic activities, because the current economic situation in Ukraine and in the world as a whole makes high demands on the quality of goods produced by agricultural enterprises. At the same time, the demand for various types of agricultural products and the costs borne by enterprises for their cultivation are constantly changing. The market environment of competitive relations is characterized by difficulties in finding opportunities and resources, ensuring the appropriate pace of development of an enterprise and setting the price level to determine the optimal production performance of the enterprise. A precondition for its effectiveness is the skillful organization of innovation in accordance with the economic situation in the region of the enterprise activity. The theoretical basis for the innovative activity of agricultural enterprises is considered, namely, its peculiarities and those of introducing innovations into production. Some problems of innovative development of the Ukrainian agricultural enterprises are also analyzed. Besides, the article identifies priority areas for innovative development. The SWOT-analysis method is considered as a method to determine the area for the development of an organization. The need for an optimal combination of production and innovation activities has been identified, which will ultimately allow not only to constantly improve the production process and its results, but also to be proactive, the latter being the main function of the organization management. It is determined that the search for innovative change areas should be systematic. It is only through purposeful and organized analysis of the opportunities provided by the business environment, and timely and reasonable involvement of cost-effective innovations for an organization, that its activities can be continually improved, and its prestige and competitiveness can be increased.