The Life Sciences Customer Relationship Management (CRM) landscape is quietly but radically shifting, and many companies are sleepwalking into bad deals because of this.
With Veeva Systems announcing its split from Salesforce by September 2025, and in the process launching its own proprietary CRM platform, the dynamics are changing fast.
Buyers entrenched in a software vendor’s ecosystem now find it painful to switch, giving the vendor even more negotiation power than before. In this new reality, procurement teams must ask themselves: Are we leaving money on the table?
Reach out to discuss this topic in depth.
Why clients are at risk
Veeva’s commanding position stems not just from its market leadership, but also from the lack of viable alternatives without massive transition costs. As Veeva pivots to its independent CRM stack, clients could face higher renewal prices, stricter contract terms, and stealthy margin erosion, unless they come prepared.
Most organizations rely on outdated benchmarks, incomplete visibility into market norms, or worse, hope that “relationship goodwill” will protect them. It simply won’t!
How Everest Group unlocked hidden savings for a global FMCG giant
Recently, Everest Group partnered with the life sciences division of a global Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) major to renegotiate their Veeva CRM suite renewal, covering modules like Approved Email, Align, Engage, Events, Network, OpenData, and Vault PromoMats.
We didn’t just “benchmark rates” either, we challenged almost every assumption they had about their Veeva deal.
Here’s a glimpse of what we uncovered:
- Multi-tier pricing traps: Veeva’s pricing varies dramatically by country and region. Misunderstanding this structure can quietly add 6–8% annual cost bloat for some tiers
- OpenData pitfalls: Clients often blindly sign up for bundled OpenData plans. In this case, by steering the client toward a surgical, demand-driven purchasing approach, we helped unlock savings worth approximately US$ 200,000 per year
- Inflation weaponization: Unfavorable Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLA) can inflate post go-live pricing. We ensured the client inserted critical protections to cap this future uplift
And importantly, size matters. Veeva (like most Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors) can offer selective discounts based on the breadth and depth of a client’s deployment.
Understanding where you sit in their strategic stack makes all the difference between a 5% and a 25% discount.
What this means for you?
If your CRM renewal negotiation feels “smooth,” be worried, it probably means you’re overpaying.
Every software license benchmarking engagement we’ve led shows one thing clearly: unless you bring real transaction intelligence and an aggressive negotiation strategy to the table, you may be inadvertently supporting more favorable terms for the other party.
Join our upcoming LinkedIn Live event https://www.everestgrp.com/events/linkedin-live/from-chaos-to-clarity-the-art-of-software-license-renewal-management.html, in which we will deep dive into the key challenges observed in software license renewals and share proven negotiation strategies to ensure that renewals are well aligned with market standards. Whether you’re preparing for a major renewal or looking to strengthen your negotiation posture, this session will provide valuable guidance on how to make software renewals work for you — not against you.
If you found this blog interesting, check out our Leveraging Contract Benchmarking: Strategies For Negotiating With Veeva Systems | Blog – Everest Group, which delves deeper into another topic regarding Veeva.
Think you have a good Veeva deal? Think again. Get in touch with our experts Rahul Gehani ([email protected]), Duttatreya Jena ([email protected]) and Manan Arora ([email protected]), we’ll tell you what your peers aren’t.
