L'azienda affronta una crisi.

Because azienda begins with a vowel. In Italian, the feminine singular article la usually becomes l' before a vowel for smoother pronunciation.

So:

• la casa
• la scuola
• l'azienda
• l'amica

The apostrophe shows that la has been shortened.

Azienda is feminine, which is why it takes the feminine article l' (from la) and not il or un.

You can often recognize feminine nouns because many of them end in -a, though this is not a perfect rule. Here, azienda is a standard feminine noun:

• la / l'azienda
• un'azienda

Italian usually does not need subject pronouns because the verb ending already tells you who the subject is.

In affronta, the ending -a shows it is he/she/it or a singular formal you in the present tense. Since the subject l'azienda is already stated, adding a pronoun would be unnecessary.

So Italian prefers:

• L'azienda affronta una crisi.

rather than something like:

• L'azienda essa affronta una crisi. ← not natural here

Affronta is the third person singular present indicative of affrontare.

That means it can mean:

• the company faces
• the company is facing (depending on context)

A quick present-tense pattern:

• io affronto = I face
• tu affronti = you face
• lui/lei affronta = he/she faces
• noi affrontiamo = we face
• voi affrontate = you all face
• loro affrontano = they face

No — and this is a very important point.

Italian affrontare usually means:

• to face
• to deal with
• to tackle

So affronta una crisi means faces a crisis or is dealing with a crisis.

English to affront usually means to insult or to offend, which is a false friend here. So do not translate Italian affrontare with English affront in this sentence.

Because crisi is a feminine noun, so it takes the feminine indefinite article una.

So:

• una crisi
• not un crisi

Even though crisi ends in -i, it is singular here. It is one of those Italian nouns whose singular and plural forms are the same.

Here it is singular.

Crisi is one of the nouns in Italian that has the same form in the singular and the plural.

So:

• una crisi = a crisis
• due crisi = two crises
• la crisi = the crisis
• le crisi = the crises

The article tells you whether it is singular or plural.

Because affrontare is a direct transitive verb in Italian. It takes its object directly, without a preposition.

So you say:

• affrontare una crisi
• affrontare un problema
• affrontare una situazione difficile

This is similar to English to face a crisis.

Yes, but L'azienda affronta una crisi is the most neutral and standard order.

Italian often uses:

• subject + verb + object

You might also see other orders for emphasis, for example:

• Una crisi affronta l'azienda — grammatically possible, but unnatural in normal usage
• L'azienda una crisi la affronta — possible in speech for emphasis, but marked

For a learner, the basic version is the best one to use.

It is pronounced roughly ah-tsyen-da.

A few helpful points:

• zi here sounds like tsy
• the stress falls on -en-
• so it is approximately a-ZIEN-da

A very rough English-friendly guide:

• l'azienda ≈ lah-tsyen-dah, except the la is reduced to l'

Yes. That would mean The company is facing a crisis with stronger emphasis on the ongoing action right now.

Compare:

• L'azienda affronta una crisi = the company faces / is facing a crisis
• L'azienda sta affrontando una crisi = the company is in the process of facing a crisis right now

Both are correct, but the simple present affronta is very common in Italian and often covers meanings that English might express with either faces or is facing.