The Life Sciences commercial industry (specifically, BioTech/Pharma) is at an exciting juncture with Salesforce and Veeva at the forefront. Both companies bring exceptional value from different perspectives and I deeply respect each of them. Given the recent announcements around Veeva Vault CRM, Life Sciences Organizations are now defining their game plan for the next 5-10 years and I just wanted to share a few thoughts on what I feel are important considerations to get to that decision point.
At a high level:
- Defining a clear strategy for Data, Analytics and AI is likely the most important factor for success. Having a vision for the future state of these areas is key while organizations continue to evaluate feature-level capabilities in either of the platforms. Through our recent pilots with Agentic AI, we’ve seen firsthand its transformative potential and are optimistic about its game-changing impact.
- The above will play a key role in defining what the new Omni Channel Game Plan would look like for the future. Refer to this article from McKinsey that
talks about the role of omnichannel, Demystifying the omnichannel commercial model for pharma companies in Asia - I also believe that regardless if customers choose Salesforce or Veeva, certain modules from both platforms will continue to remain relevant in the foreseeable future.
OK, now let’s look at some of the core features which are critical for evaluation:
Territory Management: One of the most important processes is Territory Management. Today, many organizations leverage platforms/services from ZS or IQVIA for alignments and then ingest aligned data into Veeva CRM. Veeva has vAlign, which is fairly mature and is supported on Vault already. You can read more here – Veeva Vault CRM Align | End-to-End Life Sciences Field Planning | Veeva To my knowledge, the adoption of this module is not very high yet! Curious about what Salesforce will come up with for the Life Sciences Cloud. I know that they are working very closely with IQVIA and hope that a Life Sciences-specific solution for TM is on the horizon.
Mobile Application: Veeva has iRep and this one is ported to Vault seamlessly, which is great. As part of Life Sciences Cloud, Salesforce announced that they are working on a mobile extension for the LSC by taking some components from IQVIA OCE. That will be pretty interesting. These are a few points to think about on this front:
- Offline capabilities: Do we still need Offline? I think the answer is Yes. There are many scenarios where the wifi does not exist or is flaky at best. However, in the recent past, developing this capability has become a lot easier using services provided by AWS or other Cloud Providers. So, is it important? Yes. Is this a commodity? No.
- Call Planning and Execution Intelligence: iRep on Vault will probably have the basic capabilities in V1 but with the partner ecosystem, I am hopeful that SIs can deliver the capabilities on the mobile device.
- Samples Management: With rapid changes in the drug delivery process, the dependency on Samples Management may go down but this will continue to play an important role to ensure Part 11 Compliance. Both platforms should have this out of the box. iRep does and I saw a few demos online for LSC but need to see something more concrete.
- Longitudinal Customer Assessments: Understanding customer pulse is an important aspect as well. While the operational data and sales data will continue to give us insights, I believe that the reps should be able to capture customer feedback on the devices during their field visits. These data points need to be integrated with the Enterprise Data and Analytics Store for insights and recommendations.
- Order Capture – This is another out-of-the-box capability that should exist in both systems. I am assuming that iRep will have it and also fairly positive that LSC will have equivalent functionality in the mobile application. However, will both apps have the flexibility to design and implement custom discounts based on volume, purchasing behaviors, and other attributes? Even better, based on various factors, will the apps have the ability to discount recommendations? Can the intelligence be run outside of either of the platforms and integrated with the mobile application?
- AI Enablement: Is the application AI-enabled? More importantly, can it integrate seamlessly with platforms like Snowflake, Databricks, AWS, and others to run models and generate recommendations? The ability to push these insights into the field or to various touchpoints, such as websites, for personalization and intelligence is a critical consideration for maximizing the platform’s value.
- Content: Hands down, I believe that Veeva PromoMats will continue to be the king in the near future. LSC has to integrate with PromoMats. LSC will continue to evolve but given the nature of the industry, PromoMats will play a very critical role and I do not see this changing soon.
- Extensibility: Platform extensibility is an important consideration. I was part of the Oracle Fusion Development Team and Oracle Siebel Product Strategy and with that experience, I have a very deep appreciation for what it takes to build a platform. The process is complex and very time-consuming. So, building another Salesforce platform will take time. Given that Vault is built on AWS, it benefits from fundamental advantages such as leveraging serverless computing and RDS, optimizing performance while reducing infrastructure and operational costs at the platform level. Vault provides Custom Objects, Workflows, and Basic Extensibility but making it more robust to have parity with Salesforce will take a very long time; not impossible, though. In addition, having the ability to push the extensibility to mobile will be extremely important for custom applications and org-specific needs.
- Integration: Hands down, Mulesoft will continue to play a very critical role irrespective of the platform. For major workloads, Informatica or other ETL/ELT jobs will exist but MuleSoft will replace platforms such as Tibco in the Life Sciences space for multiple use cases.
- DevOps Maturity: Salesforce is still maturing in this space and there are multiple applications on the Exchange. I am very curious to know what the Developer Experience will look like on Veeva. What does Code Deployment look like? Can the pipelines be automated? Again, given that this is Java-based on AWS, I am also optimistic that Veeva will solve this problem efficiently.
- Marketplace: Is there a marketplace where I can incorporate other apps as needed into the ecosystem? Adobe, cVent, DocuSign. And many others work seamlessly on Salesforce today. What is Veeva’s game plan? No platform can solve all the challenges by itself. We need a coral reef for customers to be successful.
- Pricing: Pricing remains a significant challenge for customers as they weigh their options. I hope one of the key benefits customers experience is competitive and transparent pricing that aligns with their strategic goals. With global implementations at stake, these decisions carry substantial financial and operational implications.
- Industry Focus: Veeva Vault brings tremendous focus to the industry. When organizations such as GSK, Bayer, and Novo Nordisk have chosen the Veeva Path, they will continue to collaborate with Veeva to improve and define the next generation of the platform. I am curious to see the early customers who sign up with LSC.
- AI/ML: Salesforce has been investing extensively with Data Cloud and Agentforce. Veeva is very focused on migrations and industry-specific business processes. To my earlier point around Enterprise Data Strategy, once that is done right, customers can always bring in the intelligence into CRM Systems and build agents on other platforms such as Crewai, Microsoft or others.
- Compliance: Veeva makes it easier to adhere to 21 CFR Part 11. I hope that Salesforce will collaborate with 3rdy party companies and simplify the Part 11 requirements at the platform level.
User Experience: I believe that Salesforce LSC will have an advantage in this space. - Skillset: Within the industry, there will be a surge in Java again. For some time, it has been all about APEX but with Vault, there will be a need for organizations to get back to Java and sharpen their skills in this space. Not a major challenge but something to think about.
- AI Strategy: Finally, the most important aspect that goes along with Data Strategy is AI. Organizations should continue to create a catalog of use cases for AI, classify them, and evaluate what the ecosystem would look like for the following:
- Traditional AI
- Large Language Models
- Agentic AI
Overall, it’s not a fun exercise for customers to rethink and implement new systems, but it is also an opportunity to plan for the future of CX powered by Trustworthy Data and AI. In my next blog, I will delve deeper into a few areas and share findings from my research.