VP Innovation is a firm offering value-based pricing consultancy services for companies developing innovations.

With the help of visionaries, successful innovations require innovators and business executives to understand the perceived value of their innovation to customers. They also need to understand why, and how much, customers will pay.

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The four actors of innovation

The innovator, or innovators, come up with idea and make initial progress with building an early version of the innovation.
InnovatorsActor #1
Visionaries get inspired by the innovation and help to make it more valuable. They do this by considering market context and by reimagining value drivers and use cases. They are thinking about how the innovation might make them money, and some visionaries become fabulously wealthy. Visionaries can be a disparate group of early customers, government agents, investors, entrepreneurs, capitalists, engineers, designers and analysts.
VisionariesActor #2
Each customer would consider what the value of the innovation would be to them, and how they would justify the price. This justification should take account of how the innovation might destabilize existing technologies and assets. Understanding the impact of new technologies needs to recognise the importance of identifying and targeting specific customer value segments.
CustomersActor #3
Businesses which are successful in launching a major innovation will likely have a substantial first-mover advantage. Such businesses need to keep improving their innovation to maintain their market leadership and to ensure it is resilient in the face of changing market circumstances. Businesses should be prepared for failure with early iterations. The success of an innovation is innately unpredictable with its value reliant on market pre-conditions.
Business ExecsActor #4

Otis Elevators

A Value/Price Case Study

In describing the value/price of elevators, this story has been framed by the experience of the author working on the value/price of a range of innovations. It has also been guided by the work of Clayton Christensen in his book, The Innovators Dilemma (1997). Many references used in this value/price story of elevators can be found in a white paper about Green Hydrogen and Otis, the author published on LinkedIn in January 2025.

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The intent has been to go into detail about this specific innovation to illustrate how to think about the value and price of any major innovation. 

By “major” innovation, these are innovations which can destabilize the use of existing technologies and have wider ripple impacts on how people, or types of people, manage their lives. It’s about thinking through the outcomes from an innovation, and how customers might pay for those outcomes.

This real-life story has been written from the perspectives of the four different actors of innovation:

1. ELISHA OTIS, an innovator who has experience as a master mechanic

2. JOHN JACOB ASTOR III, a visionary with substantial real estate holdings in New York City

3. HENRI the HAUSSMANN APARTMENT OWNER, a customer who owns property in Paris

4. W. FRANK HALL, a business representative of Otis Ascenseur Company in Paris

An extant building has been used to help tell the story of each of these four actors. Click through the buttons below to read about each of them.

INNOVATOR - ELISHA OTIS
VISIONARY - J J ASTOR III
CUSTOMER - HENRI H.
BUSINESS - W. FRANK HALL
“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances”
William Shakespeare
As You Like it, Jacques, Act 2, Scene 7