Theoretical and methodological fundamentals of investing in the assets of the industrial enterprise development

Investments in real business, allocated by economists as an alternative to financial assets, were submitted only as an investment in tangible assets and intellectual property. The overall trend of business development is the constant improvement of competitiveness that makes owners and managers increase the expenditure on staff training, sales promotion, the market research, and improve the organization of production processes and outside work. The result of this trend was the increase in the percentage of these costs, which led to the formation of general principles of the management of these expenses. Currently, the term “investments” was applied to these costs. In this regard there is a practical need for a new group of investments in the operating enterprise, i.e. intangible assets for the development of quality of staff, customers, business processes, etc. in order to evaluate the effectiveness of such management decisions. To solve this problem the author makes an analysis of the essence of investment in assets that do not have material content and at the same time do not fir under the concept of “intangible assets”, introduces new concepts that reflect the activities of managers regarding investment in the enterprise: quasinvestments and development assets, and also formulates and systematizes the differences between the investment from traditional investments in tangible assets. This article presents the author’s vision of these differences, which may form the basis for the development of approaches to measuring the efficiency of such investments. The author makes a conclusion that there are significant differences between the new group of investment from traditional investments.