Industries / Platform

Veeva vs. Salesforce: Who Will Win the Cloud Pharma Battle?

By Sasha Semjonova

If you know anything about Salesforce Industries, then you’ll be aware of the different offerings Salesforce has for different job sectors. These include ‘cloud’ offerings such as Health Cloud, Media Cloud, and Energy & Utilities Cloud.

But what does Salesforce have for the pharmaceutical industry? Well, they do have a partnership with Veeva – one of the biggest pharmaceutical cloud companies in the world, that came to fruition in 2017. Fast forward to 2023, and Veeva will now be cutting ties with Salesforce. What does this mean in the long run?

Veeva and Salesforce

In 2017, Veeva announced that they would be integrating with Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Veeva CRM, as well as support for Salesforce Service Cloud. The most notable talking point here was Veeva CRM: a core to Veeva Commercial Cloud, built on the Salesforce platform, that would bring together customer data, compliant content, and multichannel engagement for life sciences companies. 

As Salesforce Industries didn’t exist in its currently-known capacity back then, Veeva CRM was almost a separate offering. It allowed Veeva to operate on the biggest CRM platform of the time which meant that Salesforce had access to the pharma industry and its clients.

Veeva CRM is still available on the AppExchange, and it pioneers itself as “the most advanced and only proven life sciences CRM solution, preferred by field teams to help them optimize the customer experience.” It has features such as:

  • Orchestrated multichannel engagement with tools such as Veeva CRM Approved Email and Veeva CRM Engage.
  • Insights directly at the point of execution with Veeva CRM MyInsights.
  • Sunrise UI, a next-gen interface designed for any device, anywhere.
  • Data-driven suggestions with Veeva CRM Suggestions.
  • Closed-loop marketing with Veeva CLM.

It has proved itself to be a very powerful tool. However, Veeva announced that it would move its CRM software off of Salesforce’s platform and onto its own home technology at the end of their contract with Salesforce in 2025.

Cutting Ties

Despite their farewell, Veeva is contractually obligated to pay Salesforce as Veeva’s customers currently use the Salesforce platform. Splitting away from Salesforce means they have a mammoth task of rebuilding the product on their own platform, and this comes with its financial and technical restraints. However, in exchange, Salesforce won’t enter Veeva’s specialized, regulated market, removing most competitive fears.

So what does this mean for Salesforce? With a push to fill a looming gap and keep profits up, the company now has to work out how to deliver that without stepping on Veeva’s toes. The solution? Hiring former Veeva exec Frank Defesche as SVP and General Manager, Life Sciences. 

It appears Salesforce’s goal is to build their own product for life sciences/pharma that will not be part of Industries, and although it makes sense from a product offering perspective, Salesforce will need to be aware of certain considerations and obstacles in the market.#

A New Product

Although Salesforce is a leader in their own space, they will need to find something big to focus on if they can compare to Veeva. Veeva is now a giant in their industry, achieving $2 billion in annual revenue and holding a $28 billion market capitalization. Not only that, but in 2019, they announced that they were utilized by 47 out of 50 of the top pharmas worldwide.

Aside from Veeva’s impressive presence in their industry, there’s also that contractual limit. It forces Salesforce to think carefully and creatively about what they can offer, and what unique solution they can get the ball rolling with. 

Claude Waddington, a top leadership voice in pharma digital strategy, says that he thinks the way to get ahead is by utilizing AI. 

To stay ahead in this competitive landscape, life sciences companies must showcase a strategic vision that unites cutting-edge AI technologies with valuable research insights, paving the way for powerful, secure, and reliable AI-driven CRM solutions. Claude Waddington, Senior Director of Commercial Transformation, Trueblue

This is definitely not the first time we’ve heard this kind of thing said about AI – in fact, it’s been arguably the biggest talking point all year. Salesforce has already begun utilizing AI in its Health Cloud with Customer 360 for Health, so the initial footing has already been established. Whether they take on this approach for this new life sciences product is uncertain, but if their recent development pipeline is anything to go by, then this idea seems rather likely.

READ MORE: Ultimate Guide to Salesforce Health Cloud

Summary

With Veeva’s split from Salesforce on the horizon in 2025, Salesforce will likely be thinking hard about what they can do to fill that gap in the pharmaceutical industry. Will they venture down the well-explored AI road for this new offering, or will they have something entirely different up their sleeve? Right now, it’s hard to tell.

Either way, with Frank Defesche at the helm, they’ll likely be trying to emulate what their partnership with Veeva did best, and we’ll all have to wait to see what they come up with.

The Author

Sasha Semjonova

Sasha is the Video Production Manager and a Salesforce Reporter at Salesforce Ben.

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