Alavancagem Operacional: do VPL às operações reais Operating Leverage: from VPL to real options

This article explores the application of techniques of investment analysis through a sequential development and verifies the possibility of bias in the decision with the use of traditional techniques or the use of the technique of evaluation with real options. Traditional models of assessment – based on discounted cash flow – do not allow to inform the decision maker on how much risk it is subjected to because of the operating leverage adopted. On the other hand, models based on risk such as real options, allow the value of investment opportunity by the variance of its future results to be considered. The development of a process of investment analysis enabled the display of known elements and the understanding of limitations on techniques of investment analysis. This indicates the need to support the use of a wider range of techniques as a means to obtain better analysis results.