Classification of Small and Medium Manufacturing Enterprises by the Project Maturity and Financial Efficiency

Today problems in the development of small enterprises are strategically important issues for the Russian economy. In modern conditions of crisis trends and fierce competition, small businesses must adapt their strategy not only to the process of survival on the market, but also to develop the long-term competitive advantages. The enterprise uses the project management as the significant way, which make possible to secure a small enterprise and maximize profits. The topic of this work is devoted to the development of a classifier for SMEs in the manufacturing sector by the level of project maturity of SMEs and financial efficiency with the further recommendations for improving the project management system. The existing list of maturity models adapted to the specificity of SMEs, listed in the theoretical section of the work, demonstrated the absence at the time of the study a universal way to test the theoretical awareness of the project team, as well as the practical implementation of project practices in enterprises. In the practical section of the work, a new methodology was developed for assessing the project maturity of enterprises in the SME sphere, which was reviewed by 10 experts. The hypotheses about the presence of a positive correlation between revenue and profit of enterprises with the level of project maturity were statistically partially confirmed. The revealed positive correlation of project maturity of enterprises with revenues and profits allowed to create a model of enterprise classification based on the random forest method. The model was based on a preliminary marking of respondents' answers in 3 clusters, taking into account the financial condition of enterprises and levels of project maturity. In the third section of the work, recommendations were made to improve the current project management system in small and medium industrial enterprises for each of the clusters. The recommendations were based on the interpretation of the results obtained in the practical part of the study, as well as on the works of domestic and foreign authors.