MANAGEMENT OF THE NEEDS ASSESSMENT`S PLANNING PROCESS IN THE INVESTMENT PROJECT DEVELOPMENT OF AN AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION

Abstract

The article formulates the principle of needs assessment organization as a priority stage of an investment project proposal preparation on the examples of various profiles agricultural enteties. With the reference to organization features of various enterprises’ economic activities, there were identified 7 sequential steps of the needs assessment planning process implementation as an analytical tool for identifying ways to streamline the project team efforts during the development phase of the project proposal. In the course of the study, the needs assessment was considered in the form of a gap analysis. That means, the actual evaluation process was a systematic study of the discrepancy between the current and desired state of similar services. It is proved that the results obtained by conducting a preliminary needs assessment is the main source of providing context for identifying the industry niche of the project and setting the target audience. The authors base the process of managing planning for needs assessment on the idea of using the TOP model to guide efforts in collecting the necessary information and evaluating the organization's alternatives and capabilities. The use of TOP models in the above-mentioned purposes at different stages will help agricultural organisations to identify features of social and economic conditions of the project, to obtain data on the difference between the current and desired level of meeting the target audience`s needs, to ensure that the tasks of the strategic plan matches project planning documents and to identify the stakeholders and potential contractors. It has been found that a thorough analysis of project needs results in a better strategic understanding of the differences and potential capabilities of the project team, which reduces the likelihood of duplication of competitors ' efforts or excessive distraction from the main concept. As examples of implementation of various stages of planning assessment were used: marketing cooperative of agricultural products, farmstead, credit Union, dairy farm, distributor of agricultural machinery, research organization and grain wholesale enterprise.