Veeva CEO Hits Out at Salesforce: “It’s Too Risky and Too Expensive” : Ross Collie
by: Ross Collie
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**Summary: Veeva Systems vs. Salesforce: A Growing Divide in Life Sciences CRM** In 2022, Veeva Systems announced it would end its long-standing partnership with Salesforce by 2025. This decision has gained significance recently as Veeva's CEO, Peter Gassner, publicly criticized Salesforce, claiming it is "too risky and too expensive" for life sciences customer relationship management (CRM). He emphasized that Veeva is the "best choice" due to its tailored solutions and advanced AI capabilities. **Key Details:** 1. **Background:** Veeva launched on the Salesforce platform in 2007. Their relationship allowed both companies to grow within the pharma sector. 2. **Split Announcement:** Veeva's decision to cut ties with Salesforce by 2025 stems from concerns about over-reliance on third-party infrastructure, which negatively affects customer experience and limits growth. 3. **Implications of the Split:** As they separate, Veeva is still bound to pay Salesforce, and Salesforce is now free to enter Veeva's specialized market. 4. **Gassner's Criticism:** He believes Salesforce lacks deep industry commitment, leading to costly and complex implementations for customers. 5. **Salesforce's Response:** While Gassner's comments sparked a debate, Salesforce has not officially responded to the criticisms. 6. **New Solutions:** Salesforce is developing its Life Sciences Cloud to compete with Veeva, aiming to address needs in the pharma and biotech sectors. **Context:** Veeva's decision to part ways is seen as a strategic move to strengthen its position in the life sciences market, especially with advancements in AI. Both companies are preparing for a competitive future as they advance independently. **Conclusion:** As Veeva and Salesforce head toward separation, the rivalry intensifies. Gassner's assertive stance may reflect broader concerns within the industry, but the real challenge will be how each company adapts and competes moving forward. **Hashtags for SEO:** #VeevaSystems #Salesforce #LifeSciences #CRM #AI #Pharma #Biotech #BusinessStrategy #TechNews #IndustryAnalysis
When life sciences company Veeva Systems announced in 2022 that it would be cutting ties with Salesforce by 2025, it didn’t feel like much other than one company breaking away from another to forge its own path. However, three years on, and suddenly this move has a lot more bite.
Yesterday, Veeva’s CEO Peter Gassner took to LinkedIn to, in his words, “share [his] view and some facts”. The standouts? Veeva is the “best choice” for life sciences CRM, and Salesforce is still “too risky and too expensive” – in Gassner’s somewhat biased opinion.
Veeva and Salesforce’s History
The relationship between Salesforce and Veeva publicly began in 2007, when Veeva launched on the Salesforce platform. Since then, they have operated side by side in a partnership that opened the world of pharma to Salesforce and an ever-growing base of loyal CRM customers to Veeva.
In 2017, the pharmaceutical giant announced it would be integrating with Salesforce Marketing Cloud to have it function with Veeva CRM, as well as partnering with Salesforce Service Cloud.
The most striking product in this equation at the time 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 did not exist in its current form at that time, Veeva CRM operated almost as its own 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 currently available on the AppExchange, but the contract between the two companies expires this September, and they have until 2030 to make the final call on whether or not they will work together again.
A Messy Breakup?
At the end of 2022, Veeva announced its impending split from Salesforce, due to be completed by the start of Q4 2025. According to an article by the Everest Group, this decision stems from mounting risks in the partnership structure, particularly on the “dependence on third-party IT infrastructure” and its knock-on effects, such as a declining customer experience, domain expansion restriction, and competitor product possibilities.
Nancy Phelan, the Senior Vice President of the consultancy Trinity Life Sciences, told PharmaVoice that this decision comes at a very particular time, and one that both businesses and customers alike need to be considering the implications of.
“You didn’t have the specialty pharmacy complexity, the need for some of the field reimbursement, issues with patient affordability, and the kinds of teams [back then] that you have out in the field right now,” she said.
The split does have some more immediate implications, too, including the fact that Veeva is contractually obligated to pay Salesforce, as Veeva’s customers still use the Salesforce platform, and that Salesforce is now reportedly free of their non-compete obligations – meaning that Salesforce will be able to enter Veeva’s specialized and regulated market.
While these agreements seem straightforward enough, indications that the impending split was messier than anticipated came to a head at the end of last year, when Veeva announced the latest iteration of its CRM suite, Vault CRM, which includes AI functionality specific to the industry – something that Salesforce does not currently have a strong hold of yet.
Around this same time, Salesforce reported that they were poaching customers from Veeva for its own life sciences product. Over 40 customers, including a “top three global pharma leader,” had signed deals with Salesforce, and a number of these companies had reportedly switched from Veeva.
Veeva Bares All
Veeva and Salesforce’s separation is just over a month away, and it can be argued that the proximity of it has fueled a brazen courage in some of the biggest names involved, particularly Veeva’s CEO, Peter Gassner, who made his thoughts very clear in nothing short of fighting words.
“I know Veeva Systems versus Salesforce for life sciences CRM is of interest to many and there’s a lot of misinformation and hype out there,” he began. “So, I wanted to share my view and some key facts.”
He declared that Veeva is “the best choice” for life sciences CRM due to the company’s deep application. He also made a pointed reference to artificial intelligence – arguably one of the biggest reasons this split is happening now is key – stating that Veeva’s solution is “the fastest path to AI that is useful and practical for biopharma field teams.”
However, what stood out more than anything was his attitude to Salesforce – the company that Veeva had worked with for nearly 20 years, but has resulted in some concerning allegations.
“Salesforce is too risky and too expensive. Salesforce does not have a deep application, live customers, or a track record of commitment to the industry. So, Salesforce customers will have to customize too much and recreate too many essential capabilities that already exist in Vault CRM. That leads to long, expensive, poor quality, and risky projects and a redo some years down the road when business models change.”
He also featured a table illustrating the apparent fundamental differences between the two companies, highlighting Veeva’s supposed advances and Salesforce’s supposed shortcomings. However, it must be noted that due to Gassner’s position as Veeva’s CEO, he does not hold an unbiased perspective on the matter, and much of this table ventures into subjective territory.
The Fallout
Gassner’s post quickly went viral, with over a thousand reactions and nearly a hundred comments. What was interesting, however, was the number of people who took the time to step in and either criticize Gassner’s views or criticize them and defend Salesforce – something we have seen does not happen too often.
“I’ve supported both Veeva and SFDC CRM systems in the biotech space,” wrote Analytics and Reporting Leader Jennifer Chin. “This comparison is misleading at best.”
Achal Dochi, a Strategy Enthusiast, pointed out that Veeva has been built on Salesforce for its entire history. “To keep things unbiased, I would want someone independent to have this comparison,” he wrote. “Coming from the CEO, this is just a sales pitch without a source?”
Jose Lopez, a Salesforce Technical Architect, criticized the numbers, calling them “a bit too market-y”.
“I’ve seen Veeva and don’t dislike the platform,” he wrote. “But when you’re this blatantly biased, you lose credibility.”
However, many others praised Gassner’s directness, calling his findings “insightful”, “timely”, and “thoughtful”. Others also spurred on the idea that Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff – who is known for his own critiques and rebuttals of competing software – should respond.
Salesforce has decided not to comment at this time.
Salesforce’s Life Sciences Solutions
I reported last year that Salesforce’s answer to losing a product and company as influential as Veeva was its Life Sciences Cloud – one of the latest clouds in Salesforce’s growing portfolio.
Described as “the end-to-end, intelligent engagement platform for clinical and medical [organizations]”, this cloud is set to benefit biotech, pharma, consumer health, and MedTech companies alike.
The cloud was backed by IQVIA, a global data analytics organization for the life sciences industry, to accelerate the development of the cloud and provide Salesforce with a notable springboard into the very industry that Veeva currently dominates. This was something Salesforce needed too, especially as in 2019, it was announced that Veeva was utilized by 47 out of the 50 top pharma companies worldwide.
Life Sciences Cloud was made generally available in the Summer ‘24 release, and features functionality from Salesforce Industries products, like Health Cloud, as well as its own new ones.
Salesforce has also recently reinforced the platform with Agentforce for Life Sciences, an agentic AI solution that “enables pharma and medtech organizations to transform clinical, medical, and commercial engagement at scale with AI agents designed to address the unique needs of the life sciences industry.”
However, according to Salesforce, it is likely that sales automation functions won’t be offered until September this year due to the existing contract with Veeva.
Is Gassner’s Analysis Flawed?
With the knowledge of where Salesforce’s competing product currently stands, what does this mean in relation to Peter Gassner’s analysis? Let’s address it line by line.
Firstly, application status. Gassner claims that Veeva’s Vault CRM is available today, but that Salesforce’s Life Sciences CRM is not. Veeva Vault is indeed available, but Salesforce’s Life Sciences Cloud is available to implement too.
Next is deep application. Yes, Veeva’s CRM functionality has been worked on for over a decade, surpassing that of Salesforce’s Life Sciences Cloud. However, it can be argued that Salesforce’s longstanding partnership with Veeva meant that developing its own standout product was not a top priority.
In terms of live customers, Gassner claims that Veeva has over 90, while Salesforce has 0 – this is very unlikely to be true, as Salesforce’s Life Sciences Cloud is now generally available and being utilized by companies like Fresenius Kabi, Pfizer, and Takeda. However, how many customers there are currently is unconfirmed.
In regards to the number of committed biopharmas, Salesforce does not typically make this information public, so it would be impossible to accurately comment on.
It is interesting to note that Gassner pulled risk out as a factor to compare, as, of course, it can be argued that risk is relative. He mentioned that the fact that Salesforce customers have to customize too much and recreate too many essential capabilities that already exist in Vault CRM, leads to “long, expensive, poor quality, and risky projects and a redo some years down the road when business models change.”
However, Salesforce already has a whole host of different industry clouds that operate in the same way that Life Sciences Cloud does, so why is this any different?
When it comes to costs, factors like individual company needs, conglomerate discounts, and product specifications all come into play, making it difficult to determine how accurate Gassner’s assertions are. However, as Skot Nelson, a Salesforce Solution Architect, quipped: “Anybody who thinks they need to pay $50 million to migrate from Veeva to Salesforce should call me.”
Final Thoughts: What’s Next?
As Veeva’s and Salesforce’s split looms on the horizon, the chances of an amicable farewell seem to drift further away. Whether Gassner’s words reflect the feelings of the rest of the company or not, the uncomfortable truth is already out there: there is a belief that misinformation has clouded the judgment of onlookers and potential buyers, and someone like Peter Gassner feels he needs to intervene.
Whether Marc Benioff responds or he doesn’t is almost irrelevant now – the best course of action going forward is one that ensures both companies can fairly compete in the marketplace. Veeva does have the upper hand as it currently stands, but there is certainly no guarantee that it will stay that way as both companies advance – separately.
The post Veeva CEO Hits Out at Salesforce: “It’s Too Risky and Too Expensive” appeared first on Salesforce Ben.
July 30, 2025 at 04:21PM
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