Economic security and competitiveness are in constant interaction. Both economic security and competitiveness are characteristics of the national economic complex and its components. However, if competitiveness is both a goal and a mega-indicator of the degree of development of the national economic complex and its components, then economic security is a condition for its existence and development. In other words, a sufficient level of economic security can be achieved using economic methods, but, being a necessary condition for the existence of the national economic complex as a system, its achievement can be determined by the use of non-economic methods - through direct government intervention. The most acceptable situation is when micro- and macro-level factors, which are simultaneously criteria of competitiveness and economic security, create high competitiveness of the national economic complex and its components, forming a sufficient level of economic security.

In relation to the economic sphere, competitiveness is understood as the possession of properties that create advantages for the subject of economic competition. All the diversity of competitive relations is carried out: at the micro level (specific types of products, production, enterprises); meso level (industries, industry corporate associations of enterprises and firms of horizontal integration type) and macro level (national economic complexes of intersectoral integration type) (Fig. 12.1). Competitiveness at the micro, meso and macro levels influence each other. This close relationship is manifested in the nature of the foreign and domestic policies pursued and in the development strategies of companies. Moreover, the more developed the country’s economic system, the more clearly this interaction manifests itself: in fact, it is proclaimed as the goal of the government’s policies and the development of companies. In Russia, this interaction is only in the initial stages of formation. Some large companies do not fully understand the need to interact with the state and society.

labor: it reflects only low wages and poverty of the population, high rate labor exploitation and an undervalued ruble exchange rate relative to purchasing power parity (PPP).

The analysis of realized competitive advantages is carried out on the basis of data on the volume and structure of exports and imports, as well as changes in the share of domestic goods in domestic trade turnover. Sharp reduction in scale national economy, accelerated painful transformation

Rice. 12.1.

There is a pattern: the more economically developed the state, the more the initiative for such interaction comes from the micro level, i.e. from the companies themselves. It is large companies in developed countries that largely determine foreign policy. In Russia, the state must take upon itself the restoration of this chain of competitiveness.

Competitiveness at the macro level refers to a country’s ability to maintain high growth rates economic growth in the medium and long term. To assess the competitiveness of a country, three approaches are used: cost-price, rating, and based on realized competitive advantages.

The cost-price approach is based on the indicator of labor productivity. Russia, in terms of unit wages (WW), determined by the ratio of wages to labor productivity, has a competitive advantage compared to industrialized countries. However, the extremely low indicator of labor productivity is not a consequence of the progress of technology and productivity growth; the process of its economic mechanisms is also manifested in the collapse of the foreign economic sector, where liberalization processes took place most rapidly since the early 90s of the last century. Exports are currently being increased only in mineral fuels, raw materials and metals. By product group“machinery and equipment”, Russia’s share in world exports does not exceed 0.5%, and for goods of knowledge-intensive industries it is less than 0.3%. At the same time, the share of Russian goods in consumption on the domestic market decreased. If for many years during the period of socialist formation the resources of consumer goods for the domestic market were formed by own production by at least 80%, then at present, despite the advantages of devaluation, their share has decreased to 70%.

The rating approach to assessing competitiveness provides a comprehensive description of a country's competitive advantages based on the compilation of ratings for different groups of competitiveness factors. Russia ranks last in the WEF composite competitiveness index and in almost all the factors that make it up. However, for some subfactors of the “infrastructure” and “technology” factors, Russia ranks above average. In general, only our labor force is relatively competitive - 25th place. All other factors require development and represent an extensive reserve for increasing competitiveness. For the most adequate monitoring of changes in competitiveness, which shapes the economic security of the country, it is necessary to use the competitiveness index:

Where TO| - the ratio of GDP per capita to the cost of living to a similar global average, reflecting the realized competitive advantages of the country; K 2- the ratio of the average share of expenditures on civil science in the country’s GDP over the past 5 years to the similar world average, reflecting the scientific and technological potential of the country; A" 3 - human development index, characterizing the state of the country's labor resources.

The competitiveness of a subject of economic competition may differ significantly in the domestic and foreign markets. This is explained by various factors that shape the external and internal environment in these markets: the degree of solvency of demand, gaps between domestic and world prices, the nature of the foreign trade policy, etc. Competitiveness in the domestic market differs from competitiveness in the foreign market in that the state can influence competitiveness in the domestic market, while the conditions of competition in the foreign market are an exogenous factor. An important difference between the conditions of competitiveness in the domestic and foreign markets lies in their volumes, measured by GDP indicators. After all, it’s no secret that the large volume of the US domestic market has ensured and continues to ensure the relative economic security of the country. However, the presence of a significant volume of the domestic market does not always make national producers competitive. In general, competitiveness in the domestic market should be ensured by measures of domestic economic (industrial) policy and complemented by measures of foreign economic policy. Ensuring competitiveness in the foreign market should be carried out through foreign economic policy measures.

In Russia, due to objective circumstances, there are a number of factors leading to a decrease in competitiveness in both the domestic and foreign markets, the main one of which is higher production costs compared to the world average, associated with unfavorable climatic conditions. conditions and large territory. Russia is the coldest and longest country in the world, and this circumstance causes increased construction costs, high transport and energy costs. Labor productivity in Russia is only about 20% of its level in the United States. In this regard, in order to maintain the price competitiveness of domestic products, it is necessary either to lower the level of wages by an amount that compensates for the additional costs of transporting goods and increased energy intensity, or to artificially maintain low tariffs. Therefore, an active state policy is needed aimed at leveling these negative factors and supporting national producers. The domestic market should be considered by Russian companies as a launching pad, a mechanism for rejecting new ideas, and the state should strive for maximum convergence of the conditions and mechanisms of the domestic market with the objective, specified requirements of the external one. Of course, gradual convergence can and should be ensured not only by manufacturing companies (on the supply side) and the direct influence of the state, but also by bringing demand factors closer to international standards (attitude to product quality, compliance with the requirements of efficiency and environmental standards, etc.) .d.). According to B. Kuzyk, “...internal competition in the current state of our economy as a whole and the domestic defense industrial complex in particular, absurd." Even advanced, but single enterprises have little chance of gaining a stable position in the world market. Today, a decision has already been made to create a shipbuilding company.

Competitiveness is an attribute of a developed market mechanism, which is based on competition in the internal developed market, which should be formed in Russia before 2010 as a result of institutional reforms in the public and private sectors, namely in the fields of education, medicine, banking and finance, and also in commodity markets. But competition is not an end in itself of reforms, but only their consequence. In this regard, it is important to consider the main objectives of the ongoing institutional reforms from the perspective of competitive relations.

The ongoing reform of the educational system is an example of underestimating the possibility of competitive incentives for development. The fundamental problem of Russian education is that it is viewed by society as part of the social sphere, and not as a production sector. In the government program for

the period up to 2010, education reform is discussed in the social policy section. At the same time, effective incentives for the development of competitive relations can be created only if we consider higher education as, albeit specific, but still part of the market economy, and universities as corporations producing private and public goods. In addition, the activities of universities should be characterized by transparency and modern corporate governance, which should be ensured by the publication of annual reports on the results of their activities. Moreover, a system of independent monitoring of the quality of education is needed with the creation of an institute of independent rating agencies that could, using data on the careers and earnings of graduates, on the research successes of teachers, provide the public with information not only about the process of acquiring knowledge within the university, but also about its results .

The creation of competition in the field of medical care should occur with the reform of compulsory and voluntary medical insurance, which will create the necessary preconditions for the existence of fierce competition for the patient’s insurance money, which will inevitably lead to an improvement in the quality of medical care.

Institutional reforms are also needed in the private sector. Increasing competition and, as a consequence, increasing the competitiveness of enterprises in the industry and the industry itself as a whole must be achieved in the electric power industry as a result of its demonopolization and the creation of a free market for electricity suppliers. In the banking sector, competition should take place for depositors' money after the adoption of the insurance law bank deposits. In addition, as a result of the pension reform, competition should arise between management companies for the insurance portion of the pension savings of Russian citizens.

The main mechanisms for increasing the competitiveness of the Russian economy:

• 1. A skillful combination of market openness with protectionist policies, which requires an effective customs policy with a well-functioning system of import and export customs tariffs.
• 2. An important task for creating a general system for ensuring competitiveness in the domestic and foreign markets is the implementation of a balanced policy in relation to the national currency. To strengthen the position of the ruble as a single measure of labor and capital, it is necessary to make the ruble the main unit of measurement of costs and results. There are several possible ways to solve this problem: selling export goods for rubles, gradual revaluation of the dollar taking into account the PPP of the ruble, increasing the security of the ruble based on the assessment of profitable mineral reserves, creating a new settlement system based on a payment basket from a group of metals with sufficiently high and stable prices.
• 3. Increasing the competitiveness of the country's economy is impossible without its structural restructuring, which can only be carried out with large-scale investments. Since a significant improvement in the investment climate is only possible in the long term with a reduction in investment risks, a significant part of investments should come not from external, but from internal sources. At the moment, the level of gold and foreign exchange reserves, the stabilization fund, and funds of state corporations are an important source of domestic investment. However, this direction is constrained by existing legislative restrictions on the choice of investment object for this type of asset. The philosophy of such restrictions is based on the inadmissibility of inflationary pressure on the economy. However, the lack of domestic sources of investment, especially during times of global unrest financial system, clearly restrains economic growth.
• 4. Since structural restructuring of the economy takes time, in the short term it is necessary to maintain the price competitiveness of Russian goods on world markets by:
  • - regulation of prices for products and services of natural monopolies, which constitute a significant share in the production costs of the national economy. At the same time, the argument that domestic energy prices are many times lower than world prices is not entirely convincing. Calculations show that domestic energy prices, recalculated through PPP into US dollars, are quite consistent with prices for this resource on the foreign market;
  • - targeted influence of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation on the exchange rate of the ruble. World experience shows that in developing countries and countries with economies in transition, an undervalued exchange rate of the national currency is deliberately maintained in order to maintain a positive trade balance. However, as the economic situation improves, a gradual convergence of the national currency exchange rate with PPP is necessary without a sharp change in prices.
• 5. In stimulating the export of science-intensive, high-tech products, it is necessary to use such generally accepted tools as preferential lending and taxation, provision of state guarantees for external financing and supply of products on credit, export risk insurance, government assistance in promoting domestic products to foreign markets, including including by organizing exhibitions and fairs. Increasing the export of finished products with a high degree of added value is impossible without R&D. Therefore, it is necessary to provide tax incentives to industries or individual enterprises whose products can compete on world markets: laser equipment and technologies, computer software, products of the aerospace, nuclear, and energy industries. At the same time, targeted funding for R&D is necessary. The production of high-tech products is ensured by only 50 macrotechnologies. The seven most developed countries, possessing 46 macro-technologies, have 80% of this market and receive from the export of high-tech products: USA - $700 billion, Germany - $530 billion, Japan - $400 billion. Russia can lay claim to 10-15 macro-technologies, which should become national priorities, which will allow it to control 10-15% of the market for high-tech products. An important reserve for expanding the export of high-tech and knowledge-intensive products is conversion military-industrial complex and production of dual-use products.
• 6. The expansion of Russian capital abroad is important for the overall maintenance of competitiveness. Indeed, with the weakness of international currencies and the large volume of cash on the balance sheets of Russian companies, their role in the global mergers and acquisitions market is growing sharply. Penetration into international markets, in turn, creates mechanisms for influencing the economic and foreign policy of the investment recipient country, at least through employment channels. In the short term, this effect is not noticeable. However, for long-term development this is a definite advantage.

As a result of studying this chapter, students should:

know

• - the essence of the competitiveness of the national economy;
• - concept and forms of unfair competition;
• - dangers and threats arising from unfair competition;
• - current state development of the antimonopoly legislation system;

be able to

• - take a systematic approach to solving problems related to assessing the competitiveness of the economy;
• - use the methodology for assessing competitiveness while ensuring economic security;
• - identify individual forms of unfair competition;

own

• - a body of knowledge in the field of combating unfair competition;
• - methods for assessing the level of unfair competition;
• - ways of monitoring compliance with antimonopoly legislation.

Key words: competitiveness, fair competition, criminal competition, hostile takeovers, countering unfair competition.

Competitiveness of the national economy as a mechanism for ensuring economic security

The competitiveness of the national economy and economic security are in constant interaction. Both economic security and competitiveness are integral characteristics of the national economy. However, if competitiveness is the goal and determines the level of development of the national economy, then economic security provides the conditions for existence and development. It can be assumed that the required level of economic security is a necessary condition and its achievement is determined by the use of economic and non-economic methods.

The competitiveness of the national economy is predetermined by sufficient conditions, which include: high rates of economic growth in the medium and long term; productivity level of production factors; the ability of economic entities to participate in international competition.

Increasing the competitiveness of the national economy underlies the acceleration of economic growth and, in accordance with this, an increase in the overall level of well-being.

In Art. 4 of the Federal Law of July 26, 2006 No. 135-FZ “On the Protection of Competition” defines competition as “rivalry of economic entities, in which the independent actions of each of them exclude or limit the possibility of each of them unilaterally influencing the general conditions of circulation of goods on the relevant product market."

Competition in a free market is a self-emerging, self-sustaining and self-regulating phenomenon, objectively inherent in market connections and relationships. If we approach the problem of competition from this point of view, then it is more legitimate to consider it from the point of view of the impact on the processes of competition, called competition management, and equally, or even to a greater extent, from the standpoint of developing the capabilities of subjects economic activity participate in competition, strengthen its competitive position in the markets.

With this formulation, the focus should be on the competitiveness of business entities, agents of economic activity, and the object of studying the theory and practice of management becomes managing the competitiveness of participants in competitive market relations x.

In the scientific literature one can find different definitions of the concept of “competitiveness”, although the meaning of this category is clear that in all cases we are talking about the ability of a participant in economic activity to compete with its rivals in the markets.

The concept of competitiveness has not yet been fully formulated, despite the general recognition of its importance. To understand what competitiveness is, you must first understand foundations of the nation's well-being. The main economic goal of the nation is to increase the stable standard of living of the country's population. The standard of living must be assessed for the population as a whole, and not for individual citizens, and improvements in the standard of living must be available to all groups of the population.

In contrast to competitive relations (competition), which are certain relations between its subjects, the concept of “competitiveness” is a potential or actual property of a phenomenon (person or thing) directly related to competition. In the most general case, it determines the potential or level of opportunity of a subject of competitive market relations to compete with its counterparties.

In the global competitiveness ranking 2015-2016. ( The Global Competitiveness Index 2015-2016)(Table 11.1), published by the analytical group of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Russia ranks 45th.

The World Economic Forum study uses two indices to rank countries: Global Competitiveness Index And Business Competitiveness Index. The generalized estimate is given by Global Competitiveness Index (GGT).

The Global Competitiveness Index includes 12 competitiveness elements that characterize the competitiveness of world economies at different levels of economic development. These components are: “Quality of institutions”, “Infrastructure”, “Macroeconomic stability”, “Health and primary education”, “Higher education and vocational training”, “Efficiency of the market for goods and services”, “Efficiency of the labor market”, “Development of financial market", "Technological level", "Domestic market size", "Competitiveness of companies" and "Innovation potential".

In 2013, Russia took 64th place, in 2014 - 54th place.

In first place in the 2015-2016 ranking. Switzerland is located, occupying this place for the seventh year in a row. Second place - Singapore, 3rd - USA (world leader in the production of innovative products). To the advantages of American economic system include: extreme competitiveness, innovativeness, a supportive university system, a flexible labor market and a significant size of the domestic market. Among the shortcomings are a low level of trust in politicians (48th place), ineffective spending of public funds (73rd place), and a low level of macroeconomic stability (113th place).

1 World Economic Forum, 2014. The Global Competitiveness Report 2014-2015.

According to M.I. Gelvanovsky, “in relation to the economic sphere, competitiveness in the most general form can be understood as the possession of properties that create advantages for the subject of economic competition (competition).”

The identification of competitiveness at different levels of economic management also emphasizes the specificity of methods for managing competitiveness at each level, the uniqueness of macroeconomic and microeconomic management, and the ability to compete of countries, industries, regions, companies, and producers of individual goods and services.

In accordance with the levels of the concept of competitiveness, carriers of competitive advantages can be divided into three main groups, each of which characterizes hierarchical level formation of the category of competitiveness:

• - micro level - goods (specific types of products and services);
• - meso level - individual enterprises, firms, their corporate associations, industries, industry complexes;
• - macro level - national economies of individual countries.

According to the concept of M.I. Gelvanovsky, on each of the indicated

levels, the different content of the competition process itself and the range of factors that shape micro-, meso- And macrocompetitiveness. Each of the listed concepts of competitiveness is described by its own set of indicators and, accordingly, the process of increasing it requires an approach specific to each level.

In accordance with the proposed structure of the concept of competitiveness, various concepts are formulated at each level:

• -microcompetitiveness- a set of factors that provide goods with advantages in their exchange for money in the domestic and foreign markets;
• - mesocompetitiveness- a set of factors that ensure sustainable production and sales of competitive goods in the domestic and foreign markets;
• -macrocompetitiveness- a set of factors for strengthening and developing the national reproductive base, which ensures the country’s long-term advantages in the global economy compared to other countries.

The entire set of competitive advantages can be divided into three groups:

• - resource(possession of resources of special quality or quantity (natural or acquired));
• - operating rooms(characterization of the degree or efficiency of use of available resources);
• - program-strategic(the presence of a specific development strategy for the entity that bears a competitive advantage, the quality of this strategy).

As competitive market relations develop, the types of advantages become more complex from resource to strategic, and the latter (strategic) become increasingly important.

National competitiveness economy(KNE) - an indicator of how effectively a country, in comparison with other countries, uses its economic, scientific, technical, production, organizational, managerial, marketing and other capabilities to produce goods and services that successfully compete with foreign goods and services competing with them both in domestic and foreign markets.

The state's task is to lay long-term foundations for increasing the country's competitive advantages and push national producers to increase their competitiveness. In a market economy, the state is not endowed with the function of managing competitiveness even in relation to industries and enterprises public sector, where this function is truncated.

Public management of competitiveness represents the organizational, administrative, economic, moral and psychological impact of government bodies on the processes of development, production, market circulation, consumption of goods and services and participants in these processes, carried out with the aim of strengthening positions in markets, maximizing sales volume, sales revenue, income, profit through the use of competitive advantages. The latter include higher prices compared to competitors technical level and quality of goods and services, more low prices, production and circulation costs, including transaction costs.

State management of competitiveness on macro- and microeconomic levels, aimed at increasing it, includes, respectively:

• - financing scientific research, design, engineering, technological developments, pilot production, testing within the framework of government targeted programs scientific, technical, technical and technological development;
• - state participation in professional training, improving the level of education of workers;
• - state participation in the search, dissemination, transfer of world experience in production and organization of market sales;
• - state assistance in the development and application of resource-saving technologies for the production and circulation of products;
• - quality management of goods and services through the development and approval of state quality standards and product certification;
• - state assistance in promoting goods and services of domestic producers to sales markets, retaining and expanding market sectors, protecting against pressure from domestic and foreign monopolies.

The state does not manage competitiveness, but influences it through various measures and means of regulation - legislation, by-laws, government regulations, economic levers. Real competitiveness management is carried out at the level of direct producers. It is on manufacturing firms, their ability to work in the market, and focus in business that it depends on the extent to which they can use not only their internal potential, but also the national opportunities created by the state to maintain competitiveness.

The connection between competitiveness and security it is practically not considered at the theoretical level, although this is an extremely important methodological aspect that must certainly be taken into account when developing the country’s competitive strategy. This connection is due to two main features of competition.

The first is extreme rigidity, which, as a rule, theorists try not to talk about, but which practitioners are well aware of. First of all, we should not forget that competition is a competition in which only the winners reach the finish line.

The second, which follows from the first, is the dual nature of competition from the standpoint of generally accepted morality, which often hides the real ways to achieve competitive positions. From this property it follows the relative nature of competitiveness indicators.

In other words, real competitiveness is always not an absolute characteristic of resource potential, but relative, in relation to some other competing entity that bears competitive advantages (product, company or country). This, in turn, means that even an ineffective one can be competitive. market subject, if he manages to ensure that other competing entities turn out to be even less effective, i.e. if competition is conducted in an unfair manner, in violation of generally accepted rules.

It should be noted that in our literature an image of some idealized competition has been created, and entrepreneurs themselves are presented in the image of some “knights of the market without fear or reproach,” and on this basis serious social and economic structures are built. Although everyone, without exception, understands that this is not so. The aphorism of the English thinker Thomas Fuller, who lived back in the 17th-18th centuries, is well known: “He who intends to do business only with honest people must forget about commerce.”

It follows from this that competitiveness can be achieved not only by market entities improving their own characteristics, but also by influencing competitors to block their development or use any destructive measures against them. For example, by undermining their competitive potential or disrupting plans and programs to increase the competitiveness of their market opponents. And the ego, unfortunately, is not an exception, but, as T. Fuller correctly noted, rather the norm.

At the same time, undermining the market positions of competitors often turns out to be cheaper than developing and implementing one’s own expensive programs to improve technology, train personnel, find new ways to satisfy consumer demand, etc. In addition, destructive measures can often turn out to be more effective in terms of “cleaning up” the competitive field and for some period of time ensure a stable leading position for the company or country practicing such measures.

Although such destructive policies are recognized as “unfair competition” and are sometimes fraught with legal punishment, nevertheless, the temptation to use destructive methods along with constructive methods of competition often wins.

Both individual companies and individual countries are forced to take this circumstance into account in their competitive practices. The degree of protection they build from such measures also largely determines the level of their competitiveness, which in this formulation of the problem becomes an activity to ensure economic security (of a company or a country).

Thus, competitiveness practically includes concept of economic security, without which neither an individual company nor a country can maintain its market position for a sufficiently long time in the conditions of the modern world market. If highly efficient production, trade, financial or insurance business is not provided with the necessary level of security from competitors, they cannot be considered competitive.

If a system of such security is not built, no competitive advantages will save you; on the contrary, they will most likely become the prey of a competitor. Ensuring security, as a rule, blocks the loss of competitive advantages or their transfer from one competing entity to another.

Therefore, it can be simplified to say that competitiveness- This efficiency plus safety. At different levels of business organization, security is achieved in different ways.

The competitiveness of the national economy is the main indicator reflecting the state of the country's economy and the prospects for its development. IN modern conditions large-scale cross-border movement of capital, globalization of markets and production, the competitiveness of goods, enterprises and the state is increasingly determined by the ability of the national economy to generate and implement new technologies.

Considering that the economic security of a state is a state of the economy and government institutions that ensures guaranteed protection of national interests, harmonious, socially oriented development of the country as a whole, sufficient economic and defense potential even in the most unfavorable scenarios for the development of internal and external processes, it has : internal material basis- a sufficiently high level of development of productive forces, which is capable of providing an essential part of the natural and cost elements of the expanded reproduction of GNP; internal socio-political basis - a sufficiently high level of public agreement regarding long-term national goals, allowing for the development and adoption of a state strategy for social and economic development.

The development of competitiveness ensures the progressive development of the country's economy. In the strategic perspective, economic security will be negatively impacted by restrictive economic measures introduced against the Russian Federation, global and regional economic crises, increased unfair competition, and the factors determining national competitive advantages will include: education and public health, development of science, the possibilities of the information environment, providing, with the help of public administration, conditions for the development of the creative creative abilities of each individual, a clean environment and a high quality of life, the rapid development of key production and technical systems of the new technological order.

• Kuznetsova E.I. Economic security and competitiveness. Formation of the state's economic strategy: monograph. M.: UNITY-DANA, 2012.
• Gelvapovsky M.I., Rozhkov K.L., Skryabina N.I. Competitiveness of the national economy. Problems of statistical support. Search for methodological adequacy. M.: Statistics of Russia, 2009.

After studying Chapter 9, the student should:

know

• basic concepts of the category “economic security of an enterprise”;
• factors and sources of threats to the economic security of an enterprise;
• criteria and indicators of economic security of an enterprise;

be able to

• analyze the main directions of ensuring the economic security of the enterprise;
• determine the role and importance of the economic security service in the activities of the enterprise;

own

• skills in assessing threats to the economic security of an enterprise;
• skills in organizing professional selection in ensuring enterprise safety.

Concept, factors and threats to the economic security of an enterprise

If you don't show your fangs, you will be considered a herbivore.

A. V. Ivanov

The problem of economic security of an enterprise is especially relevant during periods of economic, social and political instability in society. This situation occurs during the period of transformation of the institutional environment and the formation of competitive relations.

Economic security of the enterprise– this is a state of protection of the vital interests of an enterprise from internal and external threats, i.e. protection of the enterprise, its human and intellectual potential, information, technology, capital and profit, which is ensured by a system of measures of a special, legal, economic, organizational, engineering and social nature.

The need to ensure security is due to the presence of a number of factors and sources of threats that, to one degree or another, affect the security of the enterprise.

Threat to the economic security of the enterprise– a set of influences, factors of the external and internal environment of an enterprise aimed at illegally or maliciously impeding or complicating its functioning in accordance with the statutory, long-term and short-term goals and objectives, as well as alienation of the results of its activities.

Objects subject to mandatory protection from potential threats and illegal attacks include:

• personnel (managers and personnel holding information, employees of external services, etc.);
• financial assets (cash, precious metals, financial documents);
• material assets (buildings, structures, storage facilities, equipment, finished products, etc.);
• information resources with limited access, databases, software;
• information technology tools and systems;
• technical means and systems for the protection and protection of material and information resources.

The main factors that worsen the economic security of an enterprise are: low level of competitiveness of the enterprise; instability of the financial condition of the enterprise; inability of the state to pay for products for its needs.

In the last 15–20 years, fundamentally new trends have emerged in our country that have a negative impact on the economic security of enterprises: the takeover of enterprises; forced bankruptcy of enterprises; obvious destabilization of the enterprise management system, pursuing the goal of seizing control over the enterprise; the use of law enforcement agencies in resolving corporate conflicts, etc.

The beginning of the takeover of enterprises in Russia dates back to the mid-90s. XX century, when large banks used the takeover of enterprises from various sectors of the economy for the purpose of their subsequent resale. At the same time, forced bankruptcy of enterprises was practiced, which continues to this day. The use of the institution of bankruptcy became possible as a result of the low quality of bankruptcy legislation. Often, an efficiently functioning enterprise is subject to bankruptcy proceedings and external management, which often ends with a change in the real owner. Destabilization of the enterprise management system means actions that involve a change in management, deprivation of real rights of shareholders in violation of existing legislation, aimed at seizing control of the enterprise. In a number of cases, law enforcement agencies are used under the pretext of resolving corporate conflicts. In such conditions necessary requirement is protection economic interests and economic security of Russian enterprises.

Sources of threats to economic security are the actions of people, organizations, as well as a combination of circumstances, in particular the state of the financial situation in the markets of a given enterprise, scientific and technological developments, etc. In this regard, threats to the economic security of an enterprise can be very diverse.

Illustration

According to experts, the main threats to business activity in the Russian economy include the following.

• 1. Economic suppression:
  • failure of transactions and other agreements – 48%;
  • paralysis of an enterprise’s activities using the powers of government bodies and the media – 31%;
  • compromise of the enterprise’s activities – 11%;
  • blackmail, compromise of managers and individual employees – 10%.
• 2. Physical pressure:
  • robbery and assault on offices, warehouses - 73%;
  • threats of physical violence – 22%;
  • contract killings – 5%.
• 3. Industrial espionage:
  • bribery of employees – 43%;
  • transfer of documents and developments – 10%;
  • copying programs and data – 24%;
  • PC penetration – 18%;
  • eavesdropping on negotiations – 5%.

Source: Yarochkin V.I. Securitology is the science of life safety. M.: Os-89, 2000.

Threats to the economic security of an enterprise can be classified according to the following criteria.

1. By source of occurrence threats are divided into external and internal.

External threats include, for example, theft material resources and valuables by persons not working at this enterprise, industrial espionage, illegal actions of competitors.

Internal threats involve disclosure of confidential information by employees and low qualifications of specialists developing business documents.

2. By nature of negative impacts: objective and subjective.

Objective negative impacts arise without participation and contrary to the interests of the enterprise or its employees.

Subjective negative impacts arise as a result of the ineffective functioning of the enterprise and its team.

3. By severity of consequences: threats with high, significant, medium and low severity of consequences.

High severity means that these threats can lead to a sharp deterioration in all financial and economic indicators of the enterprise, which causes the immediate cessation of its activities or causes such irreparable harm that will lead to the same consequences later. In this case, the enterprise is liquidated.

A significant degree of severity of the consequences of the implementation of threats implies the possibility of causing such financial losses to the enterprise that will have a negative impact on the main financial and economic indicators of the enterprise, on its activities in the future and can be overcome over a long period of time.

Moderate severity means that overcoming the consequences of threats requires costs (causes losses) comparable to the current costs of the enterprise, and does not require significant time.

The consequences of the implementation of threats with a low degree of consequences do not have any significant impact on the strategic position of the enterprise, or even on its current activities.

4. By degree of probability threats can be unlikely and real.

Factors of low probability of threat include:

• the threat is made by one person, not an organized group;
• there are no real possibilities of carrying out the threat;
• exist simple ways protection (physical expulsion of a person or surrender to law enforcement agencies).

Real threats include those that:

• accompanied by physical violence, damage to the property of the enterprise, kidnapping of workers;
• carried out by an organized group putting forward specific demands and certain amounts;
• carried out with the participation of experienced lawbreakers.
• 5. By impact at the stage of entrepreneurial activity threats differ at the stage of creating an enterprise -

Rice. 9.1.

tion and at the stage of its functioning, which include the production and final stages.

At the stage of creation, threats can manifest themselves in illegal actions on the part of officials that impede the organization of the enterprise.

At the operating stage, threats can arise at the preparatory stage (creating obstacles to the normal supply of raw materials, materials, equipment), at the production stage (destruction or damage to property, equipment, theft of know-how), at the final stage (obstruction of sales, restriction of competition, illegal restriction advertising).

6. By object of encroachment threats to labor, material, financial, and information resources are highlighted.

Threats to labor resources (personnel) - blackmail to obtain confidential information, kidnapping of employees, extortion.

Threats to material resources - damage to buildings, premises, communication systems, theft of equipment.

Threats to financial resources - fraud, falsification of financial documents, currency, theft of funds.

Threats to information resources - unauthorized connection to the enterprise information network, seizure of confidential documents.

7. By type of damage threats are highlighted: direct damage and lost profits.

In Fig. 9.1 schematically presents the classification of threats to the economic security of an enterprise.

Introduction

Chapter 1. Theoretical foundations and factors influencing the competitiveness of an enterprise

1 The essence of enterprise competitiveness

Chapter 2. The role of competitiveness in the economic security of an enterprise

1 Economic security of the enterprise

2 The impact of competitiveness on the financial stability of an enterprise

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

The problem of assessing the economic security of a state, region, industry or cooperative has recently acquired particular relevance. However, despite the great interest of domestic and foreign scientists and practitioners in it, it should be noted that existing developments are mainly devoted to various aspects of national and regional security, and to a much lesser extent - to issues of economic security of enterprises.

lack of certainty in the choice of components of the economic security of an enterprise;

the presence of significant difficulties in formally describing the dynamic properties of an enterprise from the point of view of ensuring its economic security in conjunction with the actions of destabilizing factors;

difficulties in determining the composition of evaluation criteria for the components of economic security;

the lack of generally accepted domestic methods for assessing the level of components of an enterprise’s economic security, since approaches that have received recognition in foreign practice cannot always be applied in the economic conditions of the Russian Federation.

The competitiveness of an enterprise and its financial stability are complex and interrelated categories. On the one hand, increasing the competitiveness of an enterprise is necessary and prerequisite ensuring and maintaining financial stability at the proper level. On the other hand, unstable financial condition enterprises does not allow them to successfully solve the problem of competitiveness. Maintaining the required level of competitiveness and financial stability of an enterprise requires the full use of numerous internal and external development factors.

Currently, the financial manager is becoming one of the key figures in the enterprise. He is responsible for posing problems of a financial nature, analyzing the feasibility of using one or another method of decision adopted by the management of the enterprise, and proposing the most acceptable course of action. The activities of a financial manager in general can be represented by the following areas: general financial analysis and planning, providing the enterprise with financial resources (management of sources of funds), distribution of financial resources (investment policy).

So, successful financial management aimed at:

survival of the company in a competitive environment;

avoiding bankruptcy and major financial failures;

growth in production and sales volumes;

profit maximization;

cost minimization;

ensuring the profitable operation of the company.

The object of the work is the competitiveness of the enterprise.

The subject of the work is the economic security of the enterprise.

The purpose of the work is to study competitiveness as a factor of economic security.

1)reveal the theoretical foundations and factors influencing the competitiveness of an enterprise;

2)consider the role of competitiveness in the economic security of an enterprise.

Chapter 1. Theoretical foundations and factors influencing the competitiveness of an enterprise

1 The essence of enterprise competitiveness

Competition is a civilized and legalized form of struggle of market participants for the best conditions for the production and sale of their products, with the aim of making a profit.

The concept of enterprise competitiveness is very multifaceted and applies to all components of the enterprise’s activities, such as the product and its main characteristics, as well as the organizational, financial and production characteristics of the enterprise itself.

The competitiveness of an enterprise directly depends on the competitiveness of the product. The competitiveness of an enterprise is the ability to carry out profitable business activities in conditions of fierce competition.

Also, the competitiveness of an enterprise presupposes its ability to carry out effective economic contact with consumers, suppliers and competitors.

Interaction with consumers is carried out through the purchase and sale of goods, with suppliers through the purchase and sale of resources necessary for production, interaction with partners through trade in services, and finally, interaction with competitors through a system of organizational measures, current and future, implementing the company’s activity in competitive environment. The competitiveness of an enterprise is manifested at every moment, in every episode of its activity.

The competitiveness of an enterprise can be characterized as its potential quality, which includes:

The ability of an enterprise to obtain a realistic assessment of the expectations of the target group of consumers, as well as to track trends in consumer behavior. In other words, the enterprise must be able to timely, objectively and accurately assess consumer demand both currently and predict its dynamics in the future. Such an assessment is possible only on the basis of a scientific model of the target consumer group, taking into account its economic, socio-cultural and psychological factors, developed by the methods of modern sociology and marketing.

The ability to organize production, the results of which will meet the expectations of the target group of consumers as the most useful product in terms of price and quality. Speaking about results, we mean not only the consumer qualities of the product, but also its marketing qualities (price, guarantees, after-sales service, etc.).

Ability to implement effective current marketing policies.

The ability to find and create conditions for reducing the cost of providing production factors - capital, labor, raw materials and materials, energy per unit of products sold.

The ability to create and maintain technological production over other members of the industry community, which requires timely updating of the technologies used. This may apply to production, sales, management.

Ability to plan, organize and implement effective strategy in the areas of production and marketing based on innovation.

Creation and development of high human resources potential at both executive and managerial levels. The quality of the performing personnel is manifested in their ability to effectively use the production technologies existing at the enterprise and their readiness to master more promising technologies. The quality of specialists is manifested in their ability to set and solve functional tasks, linking them with the strategic goals of the enterprise, capable of providing it with key competencies in technical, technological, design and other areas to strengthen the market position of the enterprise.

The implementation of the listed qualities over a long period of time creates a real advantage for the enterprise over its competitors in the form of an increase in its market value, strengthening its brands, and building additional resistance to the adverse effects of the external environment, including attacks from competitors.

All together, this expands the capabilities of the enterprise and reduces its unit costs in the financial, raw materials and other markets, which is reflected in the price of the product and the profit it brings. Thus, the relationship between the competitiveness of an enterprise and competition in the market can be characterized as the relationship between “potential and its use.” At the same time, the implementation of conditions 1-3 helps to increase the enterprise’s income due to a better understanding of consumer needs than competitors and the ability to satisfy them. Property 4 helps to reduce unit costs for production, and all together properties 1-4 ensure the current economic efficiency enterprise and characterize the adaptability of its behavior, the ability to adapt to the current requirements of the external environment.

Properties 1, 5, 6 allow you to plan and implement technological, product and marketing strategies that create the basis for the competitiveness of the enterprise's goods in the future. These properties constitute the innovative potential of the enterprise and allow one to identify trends and predict the state of the external environment in the future, creating strategic conditions for successful adaptation to them. Property 7 is a necessary condition to create, maintain and realize potential advantages 1-6 over long time intervals, turning competitiveness at the moment, in a given industry market and with a given product, into long-term, strategic sustainability of the company. It should be noted the connection between properties 1-4 and 5-6: although the latter are not a consequence of properties 1-4, without the successful implementation of 1-4 they cannot arise, nor can they be maintained. The reason for this is quite natural - in order to create an advantage over competitors in the future, it is necessary to invest in strategic plans in the present, and for this the company must have investment opportunities.

One of the components of the competitiveness of an enterprise is the competitiveness of the product.

The competitiveness of a product is the ability of a product to best satisfy certain customer needs and be exchanged for money in a competitive environment.

In order for a product to be acceptable to the buyer, it must have a set of certain characteristics. There are the following main parameters that characterize the competitiveness of a product.

The technical parameters are the most stringent. They are used to judge the purpose of a product and its belonging to a certain class (type). They include:

destination parameters - properties of the product that determine the scope of application and functions that it is intended to perform;

ergonomic parameters characterizing the compliance of the product with the properties of the human body in the process of performing various operations (work, leisure);

design parameters, reflecting the structural technological solutions inherent in these products and ensuring certain properties of the goods (reliability, durability, maintainability, etc.);

aesthetic parameters characterizing the external perception of a product (color, fashion, style).

Regulatory parameters. They characterize the properties of the product, regulated by mandatory standards in the market where it is supposed to be sold. If a product does not comply with the current mandatory standards, it cannot be used to satisfy an existing need.

Economic parameters. They are related to the buyer's costs for the product. These include: the price of the product, the costs of transportation and storage, installation and setup, as well as all current operating costs.

Factors determining the competitiveness of a product are:

Quality of goods and services. The product can become competitive, i.e. take its rightful place among its analogues only if it meets such an elusive and meaningful concept as quality. A product must satisfy the needs of consumers, and if it can also help satisfy hidden (subconscious) needs - status, age, psychological, spiritual - its success in the market is guaranteed.

Price of goods and services. Price is the monetary expression of the value of a product, an economic category that serves to indirectly change the amount of socially necessary labor time spent on the production of a product.

Level of qualifications of personnel and management. A high level of basic education allows enterprise specialists to quickly learn, master new professions and acquire the skills necessary to work in market conditions.

The level of management qualifications plays the most important role in ensuring the competitiveness of enterprises. This problem can be solved in two ways: the first is to improve the qualifications of existing managers and the second is to replace managers with new, more qualified ones.

Ability to produce products high quality and at low costs is determined by the level of technology development at the enterprise. A number of types of high-quality products simply cannot be produced without the use of the latest technologies. Not all enterprises are able to purchase technological equipment from their own funds and therefore need additional sources of long-term financing.

Well, and finally, the last factor that influences the competitiveness of enterprises is market saturation, supply and demand.

The competitiveness of a product directly depends on the quality of the product. Product quality is a set of properties of a product that characterize the degree of its suitability to satisfy certain needs of the population, in accordance with the purpose of the product.

Standardization and certification are used to manage quality. Standardization is the consolidation of the most rational quality standards in special documents. Product certification is the action of an independent organization to determine the extent to which a product meets a certain quality standard.

Internal ones include those that are related to the enterprise’s ability to produce products of appropriate quality, i.e. depend on the activities of the enterprise itself. They are numerous, they are classified into the following groups: technical, organizational, economic, socio-psychological.

Organizational factors are associated with improving the organization of production and labor, increasing production discipline and responsibility for product quality, ensuring production culture and an appropriate level of personnel qualifications.

Economic factors are determined by the costs of production and sales of products, pricing policies and the system of economic incentives for personnel for the production of high-quality products.

Socially - economic forces significantly influence the creation of healthy working conditions, loyalty and pride in the brand of their enterprise, moral stimulation of workers - all these are important components for the production of competitive products.

External factors in market conditions contribute to the formation of product quality. These primarily include: market requirements, i.e. buyers, competition, etc.

2 Factors influencing the competitiveness of an enterprise

competitiveness economic security enterprise

Analysis of the competitive position of an enterprise in the market involves identifying its strengths and weaknesses, as well as those factors that, to one degree or another, affect the attitude of buyers towards the enterprise and, as a result, changes in its share of sales in a particular product market. Faced with international and domestic competition, according to French economists A. Ollivier, A. Dayan and R. Ursay, it must ensure a level of competitiveness in eight factors. This:

the concept of goods and services on which the activities of the enterprise are based;

quality, expressed in the product’s compliance with the high level of market leader products and identified through surveys and comparative tests;

price of the product with a possible markup;

finance - both own and borrowed;

trade - from the point of view of commercial methods and means of activity;

after-sales service, providing the company with a regular clientele;

foreign trade of the enterprise, allowing it to positively manage relations with the authorities, the press and public opinion;

pre-sales preparation, which demonstrates his ability not only to anticipate the needs of future consumers, but also to convince them of the exceptional capabilities of the enterprise to satisfy these needs.

Domestic economists express a very similar point of view. The analysis of the selected factors, according to the authors, is to identify the strengths and weaknesses, both in one’s own activities and in the work of competitors, which can allow, on the one hand, to avoid the most intense forms of competition, and on the other, to use one’s advantages and competitor's weaknesses.

Factors of competitiveness, according to M. Porter, are directly related to factors of production. He presents all the factors that determine the competitive advantages of enterprises and firms in the industry in the form of several large groups:

Human resources - quantity, qualifications and cost of labor.

Physical resources - quantity, quality, availability and cost of sites, water, minerals, forest resources, hydroelectric power sources, fishing grounds; climatic conditions and geographical location of the country where the enterprise is based.

Knowledge resource is the sum of scientific, technical and market information that affects the competitiveness of goods and services and is concentrated in academic universities, state industry research institutes, private research laboratories, market research data banks and other sources.

Monetary resources are the amount and cost of capital that can be used to finance industry and an individual enterprise.

Infrastructure - the type, quality of existing infrastructure and fees for its use, which influence the nature of competition.

Industry specific features, of course, impose significant differences on the composition and content of the factors used.

M. Porter suggests dividing all factors influencing the competitiveness of an enterprise into several types.

Firstly, into basic and developed ones.

The main factors are natural resources, climatic conditions, geographical location of the country, unskilled and semi-skilled labor force.

Developed factors are a modern infrastructure for information exchange, highly qualified personnel (specialists with higher education, specialists in the field of computers and PCs) and university research departments dealing with complex, high-tech disciplines.

The division of factors into basic and developed is very arbitrary. The main factors exist objectively or their creation requires minor public and private investments.

Developed factors, as factors of a higher order, are much more important for competitiveness.

Another principle for dividing factors is the degree of their specialization. In accordance with this, all factors are divided into general and specialized.

General factors to which M. Porter includes the highway system and personnel with higher education can be used in a wide range of industries.

Specialized factors are highly specialized personnel, specific infrastructure, databases in certain branches of knowledge, and other factors used in one or a limited number of industries.

Common factors tend to provide limited competitive advantages. They are available in a significant number of countries.

Specialized factors, which are sometimes based on general ones, form a more solid, long-term basis for ensuring competitiveness. Financing the creation of these factors is more targeted and often riskier, which, however, does not mean that the state will refuse to participate in such financing.

From the above, we can conclude that it is most possible to increase the competitiveness of an enterprise if it has developed and specialized factors. The level of competitive advantage and the possibility of strengthening it depend on their availability and quality.

And finally, another principle of classification is the division of competitiveness factors into natural (that is, acquired by themselves: natural resources, geographical location) and artificially created. It is clear that the latter are factors of a higher order, ensuring higher and more stable competitiveness.

The creation of factors is a process of accumulation: each generation inherits factors inherited from the previous generation and creates its own, adding to the previous ones. It is this point of view that is held not only by M. Porter, but also by other Western economists, such as B. Scott, J. Lodge, J. Bauer, J. Susman, L. Tyson.

External factors should be understood, firstly, as measures of government influence of both an economic and administrative nature.

Secondly, the factors of competitiveness are the main characteristics of the market itself for the activity of a given enterprise; its type and capacity; presence and capabilities of competitors; provision, composition and structure of labor resources.

The third group of external factors includes the activities of public and non-state institutions.

Internal factors that ensure the competitiveness of an enterprise include the potential of marketing services, scientific and technical, production and technological, financial and economic, personnel, environmental potential; advertising effectiveness; level of logistics, storage, packaging, transportation; level of preparation and development of production processes; effectiveness of production control, testing and inspections; level of support for commissioning and installation work; level of post-production maintenance; service and warranty.

Factors can influence both increasing and decreasing competitiveness of an enterprise. Factors are what help turn possibilities into reality. Factors determine the means and methods of using competitiveness reserves.

Chapter 2. The role of competitiveness in the economic security of an enterprise

1 Economic security of the enterprise

One of the most important areas when studying threats to national security is the economic sphere. The study of the economic security of all subjects of business and other types of activity is of decisive importance for the favorable development of the state.

The category “economic security” appeared relatively recently in the conceptual apparatus of economic science. Like any new concept, it does not yet have a generally accepted interpretation. In relation to an enterprise, it is considered as an integral assessment of the resource potential and the degree of protection of the enterprise from the negative effects of the external environment. It reflects both elements of diagnosing the current state and forecasting future risks and threats.

One of the different interpretations of the concept of economic security is as follows. A.G. Shavaev believes that the economic security of an enterprise is the most effective use resources to prevent threats and ensure the stable functioning of the enterprise for the present and in the future.

Economic security of enterprises in the agro-industrial complex, in the opinion of A.G. Svetlakov, there is a complex of economic, social, legal and environmental conditions for the functioning, development and achievement of competitiveness of the industry, ensuring the necessary level of living and material incentives for its own producers.

Thus, the economic security of an enterprise provides for sustainable development, that is, balanced and continuous, which is achieved through the use of all types of resources and entrepreneurial opportunities, which guarantee their most effective use for stable operation and dynamic scientific, technical and social development, preventing internal threats.

The main components of the economic security of an enterprise are: resource, technical and technological, financial, social security. Each of the components is assessed using a number of qualitative or quantitative indicators. Economic security, although it can be considered an intuitively understood category, a quantitative expression for it has not yet been found. Certain steps in this direction have been made in the work, the authors of which propose to calculate the indicator of the level of economic security based on expert assessments. Assessing the level of economic security is the starting point of strategic planning, an indicator of the investment attractiveness and reliability of an enterprise, and a characteristic of its viability. It is especially important in “problem” industries experiencing a crisis.

When assessing economic security, a number of assessment provisions intersect with certain types of activity of the enterprise. This concerns, first of all, the formulation of the strategic interests of the enterprise and their quantitative interpretation. These provisions for assessing economic security affect the area of ​​strategic management of the enterprise, and if the enterprise has developed and adopted for implementation appropriate functional strategies (innovation, resource, investment, marketing), then their goals must correspond with the formulation of the strategic interests of the enterprise in the functional area of ​​activity under consideration, and indicators characterizing the goals of the strategy must correspond to the quantitative assessment of the strategic interests of the enterprise.

Establishing such correspondence is very important, since it is with its help that the unity of the methodological basis for organizing enterprise management is ensured. In his works N.P. Fokina, in order to ensure a unified approach to assessing the degree of compliance with the interests of the enterprise, finds the need to ensure the unity of the nature of the indicator values ​​used, i.e. select the type of indicators - actual or planned. These types of indicators have different reliability statuses.

Actual indicators are characterized by the highest level of reliability, since they record the results of already completed processes of production and sales of products. Planned indicators have a less high level of reliability due to their nature - they reflect the expected state of the enterprise and the expected results of its activities. Finally, the lowest level of reliability belongs to the indicators of quantitative assessment of the interests of the enterprise, since they characterize certain hypothetical results of the cooperative. The highest requirements are imposed on the calculation of these indicators in terms of their reliability and validity, since they are the basis for assessing the degree of compliance with the interests of the enterprise.

At industrial enterprises, the assessment of the level of economic security can be the enterprise rating, calculated based on a set of single criteria. It is defined either as a static indicator - an “instant photograph” of the state of affairs at the enterprise, or as a dynamic one - taking into account the predicted changes in individual criteria in the future. The rating of an enterprise characterizes its competitiveness in relation to other enterprises in the industry, and the strength of its competitive position is precisely the best indicator of safety in market conditions.

As a basis for comparison, normative (recommended) or progressive values ​​for groups of enterprises (maximum for stimulants and minimum for disincentives, respectively) can be used. To select a reference industrial enterprises It is advisable to group by industrial areas, within which economic conditions are approximately the same. There are nine such regions on the territory of Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov, Saratov and others. For a number of individual criteria, the indicators of foreign enterprises can serve as standards: Poland, Germany, France, Great Britain.

In the economic literature, attempts have already been made to quantitatively assess the level of economic security of an enterprise using so-called indicators. The problem is that currently there is no methodological basis for determining indicators.

An integral element of the study of the economic security of an enterprise is the choice of its criterion. The criterion of economic security of an enterprise is understood as a sign or sum of signs on the basis of which a conclusion can be made about whether the enterprise is economically secure or not. Such a criterion should not only state the existence of economic security of the enterprise, but also evaluate its level. If the purpose of the criterion is reduced only to stating the economic security of the enterprise, then in this case the subjectivity of the assessment is inevitable. At the same time, it would be desirable to obtain a quantitative assessment of the level of economic security using those indicators that are used in planning, accounting and analysis of the enterprise’s activities, which is a prerequisite for the practical use of this assessment.

To do this, it is advisable to study the indicators of financial stability, break-even and liquidity of the enterprise. In the economic literature, attempts have already been made to quantitatively assess the level of economic security of an enterprise, which has led to the emergence of several approaches to assessing the level of economic security of an enterprise. Thus, the indicator approach is known, in which the level of economic security is determined using so-called indicators.

Indicators are considered as threshold values ​​of indicators characterizing the activities of an enterprise in various functional areas, corresponding to a certain level of economic security. An assessment of the economic security of an enterprise is established based on the results of a comparison (absolute or relative) of the actual performance indicators of the enterprise with indicators.

The level of accuracy of the indicator in this case is a problem, which lies in the fact that currently there is no methodological basis for determining indicators that take into account the characteristics of the enterprise’s activities, determined, in particular, by its industry, type of ownership, capital structure, and existing organizational and technical level. In case of unqualified determination of the indicator values, the level of economic security of the enterprise may be incorrectly determined, which may lead to the adoption of management decisions that do not correspond to the real state of affairs. The indicator approach is quite justified at the macro level, where indicator values ​​are more stable.

There is another approach to assessing the level of economic security of an enterprise, which can be called resource-functional. In accordance with this approach, the assessment of the level of economic security of an enterprise is carried out on the basis of an assessment of the state of use of corporate resources according to special criteria. At the same time, business factors used by the owners and managers of the enterprise to achieve business goals are considered as corporate resources.

2 The impact of competitiveness on the financial stability of an enterprise

Financial stability is the most important characteristic of the financial and economic activity of an enterprise in a market economy. If an enterprise is financially stable, then it has an advantage over other enterprises of the same profile and in attracting investments, in obtaining loans, in choosing suppliers and in selecting qualified personnel. Finally, it does not come into conflict with the state and society, since it pays taxes to the budget, contributions to social funds, wages- workers and employees, dividends - to shareholders, and banks are guaranteed the repayment of loans and the payment of interest on them.

The higher the stability of an enterprise, the more independent it is from unexpected changes in market conditions and, therefore, the lower the risk of being on the verge of bankruptcy.

Financial stability is a characteristic indicating a stable excess of income over expenses, free maneuvering in cash enterprises and their effective use, uninterrupted production and sales of products.

The financial position of an enterprise is considered stable if it covers with its own funds at least 50% of the financial resources necessary for normal business activities, maintains financial, credit and settlement discipline, in other words, is solvent.

Internal factors include:

industry affiliation of the organization;

structure of manufactured products, its share in total effective demand;

the amount of paid authorized capital;

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Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education

"MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT named after K.G. Razumovsky"

Branch of the Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education "Moscow State Technical University named after. K.G. Razumovsky" in Meleuz (Republic of Bashkortostan)

Coursework

by discipline

"World Economy"

“International competitiveness as a factor in Russia’s economic security”

Completed by: student of _2__ course

Mukhtasarova Raushaniya

Teacher: Pavlova L.G.

Introduction

Chapter 1. Theoretical aspects of competitiveness as a factor of economic security

1.1 The essence of economic security and characteristics of its main indicators

1.2 Competitiveness as a mechanism for ensuring economic security

Chapter 2. International competitiveness of Russia and other countries

2.1 International competitiveness of countries around the world

2.2 Russia’s current competitiveness

Conclusion

List of used literature

competitiveness economic security

Introduction

In modern conditions, the competitiveness of a country is an indicator of the state and prospects for the development of the economic system, determines the nature of its participation in the international division of labor, acts as a guarantor of economic security and, in general, represents the country’s ability, in conditions of free competition, to produce goods and services that meet the requirements of the world market, implementation which increases the well-being of the population.

Economic security and competitiveness are in constant interaction. Both economic security and competitiveness are characteristics of the national economic complex and its components. However, if competitiveness is both a goal and a mega-indicator of the degree of development of the national economic complex and its components, then economic security is a condition for its existence and development. In other words, a sufficient level of economic security can be achieved using economic methods, but, being a necessary condition for the existence of the national economic complex as a system, its achievement can be determined by the use of non-economic methods - through direct government intervention.

The key factors of modern, predominantly technological competitiveness are investments in new technology and human capital, an economic environment favorable for the emergence and penetration of innovations and technological development of companies, an open international trade system, subject to the protection of national interests.

Government plays an important role in international competition. However, its impact on national competitiveness is partial. One of the most significant tasks of government is to respond to events in a timely manner, to push and highlight important problems and successes.

Currently, in Russia there is no holistic system for ensuring economic security, including within the framework of ensuring national security and ensuring national competitiveness, protecting the economic interests of the state and business entities, and this system is developing chaotically and unreasonably slowly. Nevertheless, Russia has every opportunity to increase the competitiveness of the economy, change its structure, and ensure its economic security. It is quite natural that at the present stage of economic development of the Russian Federation, research and practical solutions to issues related to ensuring the economic security of the country in the context of globalization are becoming important.

The purpose of this course work is to study international competitiveness as a factor in the economic security of Russia and other countries.

To achieve this goal, the following tasks were solved:

Considered theoretical aspects competitiveness as a factor of economic security, the essence of economic security is revealed, characteristics of its main indicators are given, and the concept of competitiveness as a mechanism for ensuring economic security is considered;

A comparative analysis of the main competitiveness ratings of the world's countries is given, the main directions for improving the system of state regulation of the economy are identified in order to ensure the economic security of the Russian Federation in the context of globalization.

The theoretical basis of the study was the fundamental works of domestic and foreign scientists devoted to the study of the totality of interacting internal and external factors that determine the development of national economies during the period of globalization.

Chapter1. TheoreticalaspectscompetitivenessHowfactoreconomicsecurity

1.1 EssenceeconomicsecurityAndcharacteristicmainherindicators

Ensuring economic security is a guarantee of the country's independence, a condition for stability and effective functioning of society, and achieving success. This is explained by the fact that the economy is one of the vital aspects of the activity of society, the state and the individual, and, therefore, the concept of national security will be an empty word without assessing the viability of the economy, its strength in possible external and internal threats. Therefore, ensuring economic security is one of the most important national priorities.

Economic security is organically included in the state security system, along with such components as ensuring the country’s reliable defense capability, maintaining social peace in society, and protection from environmental disasters. Everything here is interconnected, and one direction complements the other: there can be no military security in a weak and inefficient economy, just as there can be neither military security nor an effective economy in a society torn apart by social conflicts. But when considering certain aspects of security, one cannot ignore their economic aspects.

Economic security is traditionally considered as the most important qualitative characteristic of an economic system, which determines its ability to maintain normal living conditions of the population, sustainable provision of resources for the development of the national economy, as well as the consistent implementation of national and state interests.

The essence of economic security is realized in a system of criteria and indicators. But for economic security, it is not the indicators themselves that matter, but their threshold values. Threshold values ​​are limit values, non-compliance with the values ​​of which impedes the normal course of development of various elements of reproduction and leads to the formation of negative, destructive trends in the field of economic security.

The real state of economic security of the state can be assessed by a whole range of indicators. For macroeconomic policy, macroeconomic indicators that characterize the state of the economy as a whole are important. Currently, both old and relatively new macroeconomic indicators are used in our country.

The most important macroeconomic indicators of a country’s economic security include GNP and GDP, which reflect the results of activities in two areas of the national economy: material production and services. Both are defined as the value of the total volume of final production of goods and services in the economy for one year (quarter, month). These indicators are calculated in both current (current) and constant prices (prices of a base year).

One of the main macroeconomic parameters (indicators) that evaluate the results of economic activity is GDP.

1.Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is an indicator of national output, which includes products and services produced within the country and only using factors of production owned by the owners of a given state.

2.Gross National Product (GNP) is the market value of final goods and services produced in an economy over a certain time. GNP measures the value of products produced by factors of production owned by enterprises, including those in other countries.

Real GDP characterizes physical volume, and real product is the value expression of GDP. The higher the prices, the greater the value of the product, although its physical dimension has not changed. Therefore, in order to measure the real dynamics of production, the GDP deflator is used.

The GDP deflator shows price changes for the entire list of products and services produced in the economy; takes into account changes in the structure of goods produced; shows changes in prices for products produced by national capital.

3.As mentioned above, one of the most important macroeconomic indicators is also the consumer price index.

To determine the consumer price index, the concept of a “consumer basket” is used, which includes about 300 items of the most widely used goods.

The index is actively used to index the income of the population, and economists believe that in many cases the use of this index inflates price growth and stimulates inflationary processes in society.

In addition to the listed indicators, other characteristics are used to take into account economic dynamics, including net national product.

4.Net national product (NNP) is net GNP minus depreciation on capital consumed:

The NNP contains various taxes that do not directly fall into the sphere of consumption of the population. First of all, this applies to indirect taxes, which includes excise taxes and customs duties.

The essence of the NNP indicator is that it can be used to measure the amount of total annual production that the macroeconomy is able to consume without deteriorating the production capabilities of recent years.

5.National income is another most important macroeconomic indicator. It shows how much it costs society in terms of resource consumption to produce a given net output (this is the volume of resource consumption of national annual production by owners of production factors).

The role of national income as a macroeconomic indicator is manifested in the fact that it serves as a fairly reliable measure of the dynamics of prices of national factors of production or economic resources.

National income reflects that part of the actual total volume that went to create the physical output of a given year.

However, national income is earned income, which must be adjusted for taxes and transfer payments.

National income does not go entirely to households and does not take into account the income received by citizens that is not the result of their participation in the production of final goods and services in a given year. Therefore, a distinction is made between earned income, or what is the same thing, national income, and received income, which is often called personal income.

6. The above-mentioned personal income also refers to the macroeconomic indicators of the economic security of the country, and is the income actually received by households.

However, personal income is not yet the exact amount of income at the disposal of households. After all, individual taxes must be paid from personal income. Because of this, income at the personal disposal of households is also measured. It is called personal disposable income (PDI). This income after payment individual taxes that households have are available in their final form. It is used for consumption and savings.

This structure of personal disposable income is due to the fact that a citizen in a market economy performs two main functions - consumer and investor (he invests his savings in the development of property components of households and firms, and in this latter case - in order to generate income).

1.2 CompetitivenessHowmechanismprovisioneconomicsecurity

The central role of competitiveness in market relations is natural. However, interest in the study of this economic category has increased especially in the last decade of the last century due to the growing internationalization of economic life and the increasing complexity of the interrelations and interdependencies of firms and companies from different countries that are part of cooperative ties and developing international specialization at different levels of economic organization: from a fairly simple commodity to more complex - node-by-node and detail-based. It is economic internationalization, which goes deep into production processes, and often precedes them in the form of scientific research and development, that has significantly complicated the relationships between competing companies and individual countries, which required a serious analysis of the new situation.

Unfortunately, in the USSR, and then in Russia, the problem of competitiveness was not given adequate attention. This led to a sharp decline in Russia’s role in the world economy, its loss of many positions both in world markets and in own market. One of the reasons for the unpreparedness of Russian economic science to comprehend a number of economic categories in rapidly changing external conditions

The extremely rapid and radical nature of the transformation of the national economic system in Russia. The imitation effect of pseudo-market categories of the Soviet period also played a certain role here.

Price, demand, supply, profit and other economic categories in a planned economy had a different content than what they have in market conditions. Hence the confusion both in concepts and in the ways of their theoretical understanding and practical application. Meanwhile, market economy analysts have accumulated vast experience on this topic of research, and although they did not always directly connect their work with competitiveness, undoubtedly, everything related to prices, market behavior, and analysis of economic activity was imbued with its spirit.

If we proceed from the fact that competition is a process of competition, then the ability to successfully conduct such competition and win in it can be called competitiveness.

In relation to the economic sphere, competitiveness in the most general form can be understood as the possession of properties that create advantages for the subject of economic competition (competition).

Competitiveness is a concept that not only more fully reflects the requirements of the market, but also, which is especially important, orients the subjects of competition to active actions to gain market positions, maintain them, strengthen and expand them.

Competitiveness is often confused with efficiency. Competitiveness is a broader category than efficiency. It includes efficiency as a component category, but describes more complex relationships between economic entities, individual firms and corporations, their industry associations and national economies of individual countries.

There are two fundamental differences competitiveness from efficiency. Firstly, the difference is formal and semantic, arising from the etymological difference between both terms.

Efficiency is the ratio of costs to results, showing how effectively the resources available to the subject of competition are expected to be used (calculated efficiency) or used (actually achieved efficiency).

Competitiveness is potential, the ability to compete. This ability may not be realized. It is determined by a set of indicators characterizing the resource potential (in the broad sense) available to the subject of competition. This is not a result, but the ability to successfully compete.

Secondly, competitiveness is, as a rule, not an absolute characteristic of resource potential, but relative, in relation to some other competing market entity (product, company or country). This, in turn, means that an inefficient market entity can also be competitive if other competing entities are even less efficient. It follows from this that competitiveness can be achieved not only by improving one’s own characteristics, but also by using various kinds of measures to block the development of competitors, for example, by undermining their competitive potential or disrupting plans and programs to increase the competitiveness of market opponents. Moreover, such disruption often turns out to be cheaper and more effective than developing and implementing one’s own expensive programs for improving technology, training personnel, finding new ways to satisfy consumer demand, etc. In addition, destructive measures can often turn out to be more effective in terms of “cleaning up” the competitive field and for some period of time ensure a stable leading position for the company or country practicing such measures.

Thus, competitiveness practically includes the concept of economic security, without which neither an individual company nor a country can maintain market positions for a sufficiently long time in the conditions of the modern world market. It is especially important to take this factor into account when assessing the competitiveness of a country (i.e. at the macro level), since practically no single legal field has yet been created between countries (it is just being formed, and, moreover, in a very unique way - based on the legal systems of leading industrialized countries). At the same time, already within the framework of this new system, such strategic conceptual positions are being built that can often thwart the attempts of potential competing countries to create and strengthen their own competitive springboard.

Thus, the concept of competitiveness actually includes the concept of efficiency and is complemented by the fact that it requires ensuring economic security.

If your highly efficient manufacturing, trading, financial or insurance business is not provided with the necessary level of protection from competitors, you cannot consider yourself competitive. If a system of such security is not built, your competitive advantages will not save you. They will certainly become the prey of a competitor.

Ensuring security, as a rule, excludes the loss of competitive advantages or their transfer from one competing entity to another. Therefore, we can simply say that COMPETITIVENESS = EFFICIENCY + SAFETY. At different levels of business organization, security is achieved in different ways. Today in most scientific works competitiveness is considered at the micro and macro levels. This approach has a right to exist, but it practically disappears the competitiveness of goods - the level at which each buyer, making a decision to purchase a product, confirms its competitiveness almost every day. You can build a three-level system for the formation of this category (Fig. 1):

1) micro level - goods (specific types of products and services);

2) meso level - individual enterprises, firms, their corporate associations, industries, industry complexes;

3) macro level - national economies of individual countries.

Rice. 1. Levels of competitive relations

To these three levels we can also add a hyper-macro level, when the subjects of competition are not individual countries, but associations of countries that previously agree to carry out a coordinated economic policy, i.e. create aggregate competitive advantages at the macro level. The most striking example is the European Union, but there are others - NAFTA, ASEAN.

Aggregate competitive advantages are more reliable, and things are gradually moving to the point where competition will move to this hyper-macro level, although this process is not simple or quick.

The concept of macro-competitiveness can also include regional economic complexes at the national level, since the principle of forming their competitive advantages will be very close (a kind of second-order macro level). However, there are some features of the connection between such macro-competitiveness and economic security.

The concept of “micro” is used, as a rule, to distinguish small forms of economic activity from large (macro) forms. But for the classification and structuring of the conceptual framework that describes such a complex organism as the modern economy, this is clearly not enough.

In accordance with the chosen levels of analysis, it is advisable to distinguish between the range of factors that shape micro-, meso- and macro-competitiveness. Each of these areas uses specific approaches and research methods. Each of the listed concepts of competitiveness should be described by its own set of indicators.

Finally, it is important to find out what advantages can be achieved to achieve the goals set by competing entities. Three groups of them can be distinguished:

1) resource - possession of resources of special quality or quantity (natural or acquired);

2) operational - characterizing the degree or efficiency of use of available resources;

3) program-strategic - the development strategy of the subject - the bearer of competitive advantages and the quality of this strategy.

In modern conditions, even an individual seller, if he is going to stay on the market for more or less long time, needs to have at least a simple strategy for surviving in a competitive environment. Strategy development consists of the following three main elements:

1) assessing the position of the object of competition (in our case, the country);

2) forecasting changes in the conditions of the competitive environment;

3) the actual development of a strategic action plan with options for responding to various forecast situations.

All these elements remain important for any level of competition. But the more complex and large-scale the subjects of this struggle, the more important and complex the development of strategy becomes at its initial stage - the assessment of competitive positions. For an enterprise, such characteristics as its position in the industry, the structure of the industry, the rate of its growth and structural changes, the assessment of barriers to entry of potential competitors into the industry, the degree of technological, organizational and financial and economic the integration of the industry, the presence of cartel agreements in it, etc. Finally, it is important to qualitatively assess the position of the company as a subject of competition in a rapidly changing competitive environment.

It is especially important and at the same time difficult to assess the starting positions for a country: the totality of socio-economic, national-cultural and military-political characteristics that can, to one degree or another, influence its competitive position in the world. A qualitative assessment of its position as a subject of competition in a rapidly globalizing world economy is especially important for a country.

The main task here is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a competing object. If this part of the work is done correctly, it allows you to get rid of illusions, on the one hand, and unnecessary fears, on the other.

Increased competitiveness and a series of victories in the competition ultimately lead... to the formation of a monopoly. And a monopoly in a market economy suppresses competition and leads to a decrease in the company’s interest in developing competitive advantages, since the incentive to do so—the competitor—disappears.

Another aspect of this problem is ensuring the same economic security. It is non-market regulation that makes it possible to implement the requirements of economic security in the country’s economic practice. At the same time, the main role in the implementation of this function should be played by the state.

Here we are faced with the problem of choosing between a private and a state monopoly. Many specialists (economists, lawyers, not to mention sociologists and political scientists) do not make such a distinction and, as a rule, consider any monopoly to be evil. This is categorically untrue, especially in relation to a state monopoly.

Any private company seeks to create monopoly conditions for its existence in order to obtain monopoly excess profits. Otherwise, such aspiration loses its meaning. But a private monopoly company operating under the control of the state or the public already finds itself in conditions of restrictions in obtaining monopoly profits. This is especially true for a state monopoly. The state, taking into its hands the monopoly right to set prices, simultaneously assumes responsibility to the population of the country for the fair use of this right, i.e. that responsibility that a private monopoly firm is completely deprived of.

Chapter2. InternationalcompetitivenessRussiaAndotherscountries

2.1 Internationalcompetitivenesscountriespeace

The Global Competitiveness Index is calculated using the World Economic Forum's methodology, which is based on a combination of publicly available statistics and the results of a global survey of CEOs. It consists of 113 variables, which are combined into 12 benchmark indicators that determine national competitiveness (quality of institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, higher education and vocational training, efficiency of the goods and services market, labor market efficiency, financial market development, level of technological development, size of the domestic market, competitiveness of companies, innovative potential).

The study has been conducted since 2004 and currently represents the most comprehensive set of competitiveness indicators for various countries of the world.

Switzerland topped the Global Competitiveness Index 2012-2013, which was published on September 5, 2012 by the World Economic Forum (WEF) analytical group. Russia's place in the ranking decreased from 66th to 67th place (Table 1).

The competitiveness rankings are based on a combination of publicly available statistics and results from the CEO Survey, an extensive annual study conducted by the World Economic Forum and the network partner organizations-- leading research institutes and companies in the countries analyzed in the report. This year, more than 14,000 business leaders were surveyed in 144 states.

Economy	Global Competitiveness Index 2012-2013	Global Competitiveness Index 2011-2012	Change positions
Switzerland
Singapore
Finland
Netherlands
Germany
United Kingdom
Norway
Saudi Arabia
South Korea
………………..
Jordan
Philippines

The report also includes detailed review strengths and weaknesses of countries' competitiveness, which makes it possible to identify priority areas for formulating economic development policies and key reforms.

The WEF report presents two indices on the basis of which country ratings are compiled: the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and the Business Competitiveness Index (BCI). The main means of generalized assessment of the competitiveness of countries is the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), created for the World Economic Forum by Columbia University professor Xavier Sala-i-Martin (Columbia University) and first published in 2004. The GCI is made up of 12 competitiveness components that characterize in detail the competitiveness of countries around the world at different levels of economic development. These components are: “Quality of institutions”, “Infrastructure”, “Macroeconomic stability”, “Health and primary education”, “Higher education and vocational training”, “Efficiency of the market for goods and services”, “Efficiency of the labor market”, “Development of financial market", "Technological level", "Domestic market size", "Competitiveness of companies" and "Innovation potential".

For each of the 144 economies covered in the study, the report contains detailed profiles of the country and national economy, detailing the overall ranking position and the most prominent competitive strengths and weaknesses that were identified based on the analysis used to calculate the index. Also included is a detailed statistical section with ranking tables for 110 different indicators. This year, the report includes thematic sections devoted to a more detailed study of a number of countries and regions.

The 2012-2013 global competitiveness ranking was topped by Switzerland, which has been ranked first for the fourth year in a row. Second and third places are occupied by Singapore and Finland, respectively. The countries of Northern and Western Europe continue to dominate the top ten of the list: Sweden (4th place), the Netherlands (5th), and Germany (6th) occupy the top positions.

The United States ranks 7th. Despite improvements in overall competitiveness, the United States continued to fall in the rankings for the fourth year in a row, slipping two places to seventh position. In addition to growing macroeconomic vulnerabilities, certain aspects of the country's institutional environment continue to cause growing concern among business leaders, in particular, the level of public trust in politicians remains low, and the effectiveness of the state is also not high enough. The positive factor is that the country still remains a global innovation center and its markets operate efficiently.

Next come the UK (8th place) and Hong Kong (9th). Japan, which rounds out the top ten most competitive economies, remains Asia's second-ranked economy despite a noticeable decline in its position in recent years.

The study shows that the competitiveness gap among European countries continues to widen. While Northern and Western European countries have strengthened their traditionally strong competitive positions since the economic crisis of 2008-2009, Southern European countries such as Portugal (49th), Spain (36th), Italy (42nd) and especially Greece (96th), continue to suffer from competitive disadvantages such as macroeconomic instability, poor access to finance, inflexible labor markets and a lack of innovation.

In the Middle East and North Africa region, the leaders are Qatar (11th place) and Saudi Arabia (18th). United United Arab Emirates(24th place) improved their performance, while Kuwait (37th place) fell slightly in the ranking.

Among sub-Saharan African countries, South Africa (52nd) and Mauritius (54th) appear in the top half of the ranking. However, most countries in the region require further external assistance to strengthen their economic development and competitiveness.

Among Latin American countries, Chile holds the lead (33rd place), and the competitiveness of a number of economies is also increasing, including Panama (40th place), Brazil (48th place), Mexico (53rd place) and Peru (61st place).

Large developing market economies BRIC countries show different indicators. Despite a slight decline in the ranking by three positions, China (29th place) continues to lead the group. Brazil (48th place) moved up in the ranking this year, while India (59th) and Russia (67th) slightly decreased their positions.

This year Russia lost one position in the ranking and dropped to 67th place. Russia's neighbors on the list this time were Iran (66th place) and Sri Lanka (68th). The report notes that compared to previous year Russia's relatively stable position has deteriorated in terms of such components as the quality of institutions, competition in the markets for goods and services, antimonopoly policy and the development of the financial market. There was an improvement in only two components: the macroeconomic environment and infrastructure. As last year, business representatives cite corruption and inefficiency of the state apparatus, as well as high tax rates, as the key problems for economic development in Russia. However, this year the importance of problems with the availability of financing and labor qualifications has increased significantly. All these problems prevent Russia from taking advantage of its competitive advantages, such as a relatively low level of public debt and budget deficit, a significant size of the domestic market, a relatively high innovative potential and high-quality higher education.

Among the countries of the former USSR, Russia missed out on Estonia (34th place), Lithuania (45th), Azerbaijan (46th), Kazakhstan (51st), which improved its position by 21 points, and Latvia (55th). The remaining states of the post-Soviet space are ranked lower: Ukraine (73rd place), Georgia (77th), Armenia (82nd), Moldova (87th), Tajikistan (100th) and Kyrgyzstan (127th). Belarus is not included in the WEF ranking.