Structure of goodwill of IT services and methods of its assessment

The article reveals the structure of IT services goodwill and describes the dynamics of its value change depending on the life cycle of the project. Actual methods of goodwill value estimation were analyzed on the basis of their applicability to IT-services. After disclosing the structure of IT service goodwill, it became clear that its components are difficult to evaluate separately: they work only in synergy. It was also determined that the value of goodwill is a dynamically changing value, with the ratio of goodwill to net assets changing over time. In the analysis, it was found that a number of methods could not be used or their use did not solve the higher-level problem. The methods that are acceptable to use for IT services goodwill valuation have been identified. They include the excess profit method, in particular, the Bell-Olson model, in a number of cases the method of cost benefit and on the basis of market capitalization are suitable. At the same time, due to the fact that goodwill increases the economic life of the project, the calculation of its present value as of the valuation date contains contradictions in the mathematical logic, which have to be overcome with the help of artificial assumptions. Therefore, it is recommended to use a combination of methods whenever possible in order to obtain the most reasonable result.