Identification and assessment of innovation potential in the building materials industry

The innovative activity of building materials enterprises, which shapes their competitive advantages, presupposes the presence of innovative potential. The problem lies in the fact that the interpretation of the concept of “innovation potential†and the methods for its calculation are contradictory and insufficiently specified. The research aims to identify the innovation potential, taking into account industry specifics, and to develop scientific and methodological approaches for its assessment. The research objectives are to define the essential understanding of a company’s innovation potential, develop a methodology and algorithm for calculating its level, form a system of evaluation indicators, and test the obtained results. The innovation potential of a building materials enterprise is identified as its ability to enhance competitiveness through the creation of innovative developments and their implementation into production, while maximizing the use of its organizational, managerial, financial, and production-technical capacities. The set of indicators for assessing innovation potential was formed considering technical, technological, organizational, managerial, financial, economic, and marketing factors of the enterprise’s internal environment, the list of mandatory statistical reporting indicators on organizational innovation activity, and the availability of primary data. The scheme for calculating the level of innovation potential is based on a qualimetric approach, which accounted for the significance of the identified indicators, determined through expert evaluation and statistical processing of online survey results. The expert assessment revealed that the most significant indicator is the presence of a dedicated R&D department within the enterprise’s structure. The proposed methodology was tested on a number of medium and large manufacturers of building products and structures in the Voronezh region. The quantitative assessment of the innovation potential of these enterprises revealed a low, and in some cases, significantly low level. The research results are of practical interest to regional government authorities and the business community.