In her article, the author described the key terms and conditions for growth in importance of information in business activities. They include: dynamic changes in consumers' preferences, needs and behaviours, increase in complexity of the sales markets, suppliers and competitors, strengthening competition and development of information technology. Against this background, opinions of representatives of 200 small and medium-sized production and trade enterprises with goods of daily demand on the role played by information in strengthening company's competitiveness are presented.