The Future of CRM in Pharma: A Decision Framework to Navigate the Post Veeva-Salesforce Era

Pharma enterprises have reached an inflection point in the CRM platform landscape, driven by the dissolution of the Veeva-Salesforce partnership and rising expectations for connected, personalized interactions across all commercial functions. Traditional CRM systems, built primarily for sales reps, now face challenges such as poor interoperability, limited AI integration, and rigid user experiences. In this shifting environment, pharma stakeholders are reevaluating their CRM strategies to enable omnichannel, AI-enabled engagement with healthcare professionals, patients, and other stakeholders.

This Viewpoint outlines the future CRM vision, including capabilities such as dynamic content delivery, agentic AI-driven orchestration, enterprise-wide interoperability, and automated compliance frameworks. It introduces a structured decision framework to help enterprises pick their future CRM of choice, between Veeva, Salesforce, or a combination of both, based on platform fit, evolving functional requirements, integration priorities, and sourcing strategy. The report also presents a detailed roadmap to guide platform selection, evaluate architectural trade-offs (unified versus best-of-breed), and key success factors to maximize CRM return on investment.