COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE COMPETITIVENESS OF CONSUMER COOPERATION ORGANIZATIONS AND COMMERCIAL RETAILERS

Abstract

The purpose of this study is a comparative analysis of the competitiveness of consumer cooperation organizations and commercial retail enterprises on the example of the Novosibirsk Regional Union of Consumer Societies (Regional Consumer Union) and the leading federal and regional retail chains of the Novosibirsk Region. The work has adapted the author's system of criteria and parameters for assessing competitiveness, originally developed to compare cooperative organizations with each other, to a mixed sample of «cooperation - network retail.» The methodological basis was an integral assessment of competitiveness according to the method of S. M. Movshovich, including the calculation of composite coefficients for four blocks: market and social positioning, financial stability, economic efficiency, cooperative and marketing policy. The expert assessment was carried out by a group of ten specialists combining the internal management expertise of the cooperative system and the external industry view; consistency of judgments is confirmed by the concordance coefficient. The results showed that the Novosibirsk Regional Consumer Union ranks fourth in the comparative rating of twelve operators. The competitive potential of cooperation is formed due to high financial autonomy, social rootedness, trust of shareholders and developed ties with local producers, while the main limitation remains insufficient operational efficiency. Priority areas of development have been identified: digitalization of procurement and sales processes, acceleration of turnover, improvement of logistics and expansion of cooperation with personal subsidiary plots (private farms) and small producers.