The Use of Real Options to Evaluate Business-To-Business Companies

The purpose of this work is to show that the use of real options can contribute to a better evaluation of companies devoted to Electronic Commerce – Business-to-Business. For such, usual company-evaluation techniques are presented and the advantages and disadvantages of each one are discussed, with emphasis to the real-option technique. Additionally, the similarity between asset investment and call options is shown, and internal and external real options existing in a Business-to-Business company are identified. Finally, this work describes how to evaluate a company acting in Business-to-Business by employing the concepts of real-option theory