Veeva and Salesforce: Differences and Similarities

Yes, we’ve implemented both Veeva and Salesforce for major Pharma clients (like Novartis). From that work, we learned the software doesn't matter if the User Experience (UX) is poor. Prioritizing the customer journey drives sales productivity and marketing performance is more easily measured, to understand those insights, jump down to read the 2025 Retrospective. 

A little over a year ago, we conducted a comparison between two market leaders in this article: "What is the difference between Veeva and Salesforce." Time has passed, and nothing remains constant for long in the world of business and technology.

In August of this year, Veeva Systems announced the imminent launch of Vault CRM, the next generation of customer relationship management (CRM) systems designed for the healthcare sector. While they already have an initial client for the platform (a biotechnology company specializing in oncology set to commence operations in the fourth quarter of 2013), the company has revealed its plans for the general release of Vault CRM in April of the coming year.

READ: Latest updates from Dreamforce 2024, AI-related highlights abound

But what are the differences and similarities between Veeva and Salesforce?

Both are customer relationship management platforms (CRM) that offer solutions for various sectors and industries. Their standout feature is their cloud-based nature, enabling businesses to manage their contacts, opportunities, campaigns, reports, and analyses.

For its part, Salesforce is a flexible platform that caters to the needs of any type of business. It provides extensive customization, allowing the creation of tailor-made applications for different business processes, integration with other platforms and services, and access to a broad ecosystem of partners and developers.

Due to its features, Salesforce has a greater presence in sectors such as finance, retail, digital marketing, and professional services, where its standout products are:

• Sales Cloud: It involves handling customer interactions, opportunities, accounts, contracts, and orders, along with automation, forecasting, analysis, and artificial intelligence to optimize sales and boost revenue.
• Service Cloud: Designed for support and customer service teams (case resolution, call management, self-service, etc.).
• Marketing Cloud: A powerful digital marketing platform for creating and managing email campaigns, social media, advertising, content, and analytics.

2025 Retrospective: Automating CRM Workflows Looks Different with AI

Our work with Novartis to restructure Salesforce automations was a foundational success in CRM implementation. However, if we were tackling this challenge today with our current capabilities, we would integrate Agentic AI and Intelligent Workflows to automate 30% of the manual entry we built back then.

Regardless of how the technology has evolved, we still start every automation project with the same user-centered foundation. For Novartis, we redesigned internal SFMC workflows and reporting dashboards so campaigns launched smoothly, on schedule, and with clearer insight into performance and impact. Our engineers also tuned the SFMC instance for performance, resilience, and scalability—building custom integrations and automation routines in tools like Journey Builder and AMPscript to extend the platform beyond its standard capabilities. In a 2025 context, that same rigor is what lets us layer in Agentic AI and Intelligent Workflows, moving from rule-based automation and manual data entry to adaptive, AI-driven orchestration of high-volume engagement across CRM and Marketing Cloud.

 

Considering how to integrate AI agents into your Salesforce or Veeva environment? Let's talk. 

 Nevertheless, it continues to provide a healthcare solution with Health Cloud, a platform offering solutions for various sectors, including:

• providers, payers, pharmaceuticals, and medical technology.
• it enables access to a comprehensive patient view, integration of clinical
• helps with administrative data, aids in automating healthcare workflows, managing cases and support programs, and measuring performance and outcomes.

Additionally, it features other powerful tools such as:

• Experience Cloud: Enables the creation of personalized and connected digital experiences with customer data, communities, portals, pre-built applications, and low-code tools.
  
• Financial Services Cloud: Provides solutions for asset management, retail banking, commercial banking, wealth management, and more. It involves managing customer relationships, automating workflows, integrating data, and enhancing the customer experience.
  
• Commerce Cloud: Tailored for e-commerce, managing online stores, and enhancing the shopping experience.
  
• Nonprofit Cloud: A solution designed for NGOs, facilitating the management of fundraising activities.
  
• Field Service: Manages field services and optimizes operations.
  Salesforce Maps: Location-based intelligence tool providing real-time information.
  
• Salesforce Maps: Location-based intelligence tool providing real-time information.
  
• Einstein Copilot: An artificial intelligence tool (not yet available but set to be launched soon) that generates content from data and performs actions in Salesforce applications using voice or text. 
  

READ: Sales and Service enhancements with Einstein Copilot

Meanwhile, Veeva is a platform specialized in the life sciences sector, including the pharmaceutical, biotechnological, and medical devices industries. Veeva is built on Salesforce technology, which means they share some features and functionalities, such as.

• the user interface, 
• integration with other applications, 
  
• and data security.
  

However, Veeva offers specific functionalities tailored to the life sciences sector, such as:

• medical sample management, 
• regulatory compliance, 
• event management, 
• content management, 
• and integration with other Veeva applications. 

It has a stronger presence in the pharma market, boasting over 900 clients in this sector, including major pharmaceutical and biotechnological companies worldwide.

This is where Veeva has recently undergone significant evolution. With the Vault CRM platform, it enhances its focus on the unique needs of the healthcare sector. The platform incorporates all the functionalities of the market leader Veeva CRM, along with new omnichannel capabilities.

Vault CRM Service Center offers innovative call center capabilities that both internal sales teams and representatives can leverage to enhance interaction. Vault CRM will be globally available in April 2024 and will be offered to all new customers.

The current Veeva CRM application, built on the Salesforce platform, will enter a stability mode after its latest functional update in December 2023. This is aimed at minimizing changes and facilitating a seamless transition to Vault CRM for existing Veeva CRM customers. During this period, Veeva CRM updates will focus on significant defect fixes, regulatory compliance, platform compatibility, and security updates. Support for Veeva CRM will continue until September 2030.

CRM Solutions: Finding the right fit for your business

In conclusion, Veeva and Salesforce are two customer relationship management (CRM) platforms that offer solutions for different sectors and industries. They exhibit both differences and similarities. Veeva has utilized the Salesforce platform as the foundation for its applications, and both companies have had a strategic alliance for many years. However, Veeva has developed its own platform (which will compete with some of Salesforce's solutions), so their relationship will involve a blend of collaboration and competition in the future.

Both companies have their own advantages and challenges in the market for cloud-based software solutions. At Tonic3, we are Veeva certified and a Salesforce partner, meaning we can assist your company in achieving success with both leading platforms.

With a team of certified experts and a proven track record of success, we can provide the support and expertise you need to make the most of these platforms. Explore our Quick Starts for an immediate cloud deployment.

Reach out to us today and discover how Salesforce can elevate your customer relationship management.

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