Executive summary
Veeva has announced its divorce from Salesforce, moving its existing CRM solution to Vault CRM, their own engine, which will be better tailored to the life science industry. Veeva promises to handle the migration from Veeva CRM to Vault CRM for its customers, however, this does not cover custom code, custom objects, and third-party integrations.
As Veeva CRM will no longer be developed and supported, organizations using the current CRM are facing two options – undergoing the migration to the Vault engine or moving to a new provider. At C&F, we believe that staying within the Vault ecosystem is the right decision, as it’s a solution purposefully built for life science organizations.
Any problems that may occur while preparing for the migration, such as assessing the need to migrate custom functionalities, ensuring data quality, handling change management, etc. can all be addressed by working with the right data migration partner.
Introduction and Background
Veeva has recently announced that it’s parting ways with Salesforce, moving its CRM to their own engine – Vault. This decision has been dictated by a belief that the Veeva CRM solution in its current form cannot provide enough value to their customers. The Vault platform is tailored specifically to the life sciences industry, as opposed to Salesforce. Veeva is confident that this decision will benefit their customers long term.
The first Veeva Vault migrations are to begin in 2025 and finish by 2030. The majority of companies, however, will finalize their data migration process between 2026 and 2029. To make it as problem-free as possible, Veeva has entered into a partnership with Accenture which will be responsible for supporting the customers in process optimization.
All new customers joining Veeva will be onboarded straight onto the Vault platform.
It’s a significant milestone for Veeva as they’ve been working on their own engine for many years, however, they limited its use to non-commercial CRM products and marketing materials. The company is finally ready to share its technology with the world of life sciences.
Based on Veeva’s announcements regarding data migration to Vault it should:
- Provide zero to minimal disruption to their client’s business
- Be done entirely by Veeva, at least when it comes to common data structures
- Include very minor changes to data field naming conventions
- New offline applications should have the same look and feel for the end users.
While Veeva will certainly do everything in their power to make the Veeva Vault migration smooth, a few challenges might occur.
Description of the problem
The data migration process from Veeva CRM built on Salesforce to Vault should be simple as the majority of work will be performed by Veeva. All data that is standard will be migrated by Veeva, without changes or interruptions, except for suffixes in data models, which might impact other areas.
Large companies that have a lot of data and custom objects might need extra support as Veeva won’t be responsible for their migration, since these objects were developed by the client and not offered by Veeva. It will also call for the adaptation of the surrounding commercial data ecosystem.
In terms of user adoption, the company doesn’t foresee any issues as the mobile application will remain practically unchanged. However, those who use the web version will have to be re-trained, and so will local admins and SMEs.
Regardless of the migration’s technical complexity, compliance and data integrity are of crucial importance – and it’s an issue that companies should be aware of. Additionally, resource allocation, both in terms of people and funds, effective project management, and stakeholder alignment are all concerns that should be addressed to ensure a smooth transition to Vault.
How will the customers benefit from migrating to the Veeva solution?
At C&F, we encourage our clients and partners using the existing Salesforce-based solution to consider migrating to the new CRM. We believe that the new platform will bring about a variety of benefits.
Firstly, Veeva pledges that, by migrating to the new CRM offering, customers will gain access to a more complete and flexible experience. Since the platform is purposefully built with life science organizations in mind, its creators promise to better cater to the specific requirements of the field.
Furthermore, Veeva Vault will enable a flawless, cross-platform user experience across browser interfaces, iOS, and Android devices. Veeva now has full control and decision-making power over the mobile experience. This presents the opportunity to respond to user needs and industry requirements quickly over time. This will be a vast improvement from the Salesforce solution, which enforced browser experience limitations onto the end user’s experience.
Veeva announced that their subscription plans will scale up and down easily, to keep up with organization growth and needs. Certain features, like Veeva Service Center, will be available to all customers without additional fees. This built-in feature will enable easy information access for customer-facing teams, and will include call lists, case management, and other inside and hybrid sales functionalities. Meanwhile, higher plans will also allow companies to benefit from a ChatGPT-like, CRM bot, which will assist users across all departments to expedite time-consuming, repetitive tasks and easily access required data records.
The introduction of the new CRM appears to have all the functionalities that can help life science businesses optimize their operations and, potentially, drive growth.
What to expect from the migration process
It’s worth emphasizing once again that we are looking at an internal migration, which will take place within the same software supplier. This allows the migration to be incomparably quicker than when organizations move between two separate platforms.
Veeva promises to handle the migration of all apps and standard objects to the new CRM for its existing customers. All data stored in other Veeva Solutions, including Veeva CLM and Veeva CRM Approved Email, will work seamlessly in the new Vault CRM. It will also use the same mobile and desktop applications as Veeva CRM. This will undoubtedly accelerate and simplify the transition process for businesses.
However, companies moving to Vault CRM must be aware that they will have to migrate any custom features or objects themselves.
The long-term objective for the new CRM is to offer an experience so versatile and comprehensive for life science businesses, that the number of custom or coded objects will be minimized. Now that Veeva is in full control over introducing new and updating existing functionalities, they see custom objects as depreciating assets which won’t be refined and expanded over time.
That said, for certain organizations it might still be necessary to port custom objects. Those who do are asked by Veeva to review which custom objects must truly be migrated to the CRM, and which ones are now redundant. The fewer custom objects, or the smaller the databases, the quicker the migration process will be according to Veeva.
Companies that have a more complex outlook are potentially looking at a lengthier transition period.
Potential roadblocks in the process
Although Vault CRM will be on the same data model that Veeva CRM is now, allowing for seamless data transfer, there could still be some pain points in the process of moving over to the new platform.
- Training and change management. As Veeva will not provide any “Vault competency” training and the web version will have a different UI, it might be necessary to train users both new and existing ones on the updated CRM system.
- Coded objects will need to be created by the customer. Veeva is solely responsible for migrating standard data. All coded objects will have to be processed by the customer. Also, the CRM platform will now be run on JAVA instead of APEX.
- Third-party integrations will not be covered during the migration process. Customers will either have to deal with these integrations themselves or use the support of project management services to ensure these systems are functional when needed.
- Data quality. If an organization operates on disorganized or inconsistent data in the source system, they will need to undergo data cleansing before the migration. Only this way will they be able to ensure that the transferred data is accurate, consistent, and reliable.
- Timing. Identifying the right time to commence the data migration is an important consideration in itself. The migration process will take place “behind the scenes”, therefore it should not disrupt the entire organization’s work. However, the team responsible for the migration must properly assess the duration of the process. This way, they’ll avoid considering delta or wave-based migrations if they haven’t estimated the timeline correctly.
- Data integrity. There’s no reason for concern when it comes to data loss since Veeva will undoubtedly guarantee proper data transfer. That said, organizations must ensure that the data they provide meets proper quality standards, as this serves as the ground for a successful migration.
- Adjustment of integrated systems. Before moving to Vault CRM, it’s critical to consider how the migration could affect integrations with external systems. This isn’t a worry for the existing Veeva CRM, as it will act as the main ‘master data’ source in the move to Vault.
Recommended solution
There is no question about the high business potential life sciences organizations are looking at when considering moving to Vault CRM. Given the platform creators’ pledge to keep up with the latest CRM technology standards, we can expect to see the most powerful business solution for life science businesses so far.
At C&F, we recommend moving to Vault, all the while preserving all the custom objects that are genuinely needed to ensure data continuity post-migration.
Here are the steps we recommend:
Assess the impact of leaving the Salesforce platform
What will happen if you move your data from Salesforce to Vault? Here are a few questions that you should get answers to:
- Do you use any other Salesforce-based applications that could benefit from having a Veeva Vault CRM functionalities available?
- How will these apps be impacted after Veeva leaves Salesforce?
- Will you replace these apps with native Veeva Vault CRM functionalities, if not, how difficult will it be to re-integrate them with Vault?
Audit your current Veeva CRM usage and setup
Before you commence your content migration to Veeva Vault, you should do the following:
- Gather general usage statistics – check how many employees not only have access to the CRM but actively use it. This will give you a better overview of how many people will need to be retrained.
- Assess system adoption – ask users what they think about the platform, what is working, and what needs changing.
- Nominate field ambassadors – find users with the biggest field and system experience, so you can count on their support during the Veeva Vault migration.
- Build community/support forums/field force leaders (advocates) – completing a data migration process is just part of success, you also need to get buy-in from users. This calls for building a team of experts and supporters who will act as Vault’s advocates.
All of these will help you better prepare for the migration, and identify unused elements and those which are critical for users.
Rethink your CRM approach
Once you’ve assessed how your organization uses the existing CRM, consider what you’d like to see in Vault. This step is about more than restoring the current setup; it’s also about identifying the new CRM capabilities to maximize your organization’s productivity. Among others, review:
- 3rd party vendor applications – Refer to your Veeva CRM audit to identify which customizations were most popular among employees. Conversely, look at the least used features and consider if they’d be redundant in the new system.
- CRM customizations – Look at Vault CRM features, and check if any of them offer the same, or better, functionality that your Veeva CRM customizations.
- Entirely new functionalities – Review the capabilities of the tool to decide how to improve your CRM usage and business impact post-migration.
Ensure that you have the required resources and skills
Once you’ve established the go-to shape of your Vault CRM usage, ensure that you have the required expertise to undergo the transition. These include:
- PM and analytical resources
- Technical and business testers, with both groups boasting a business mindset
- Training and change management owners
- Temporary substitute for those who are drawn away from ongoing projects to participate in the migration project. It’s essential to remember that the move to Vault cannot affect your business performance.
If your organization lacks the necessary know-how or headcount, we recommend working with a Veeva Vault migration partner, who’ll evaluate your current use of custom-coded objects. Working with the right expert, you’ll understand the business impact of each custom feature and decide if they should be transferred or decommissioned.
This step should result in a shortlist of custom objects that need to be moved to Vault CRM, along with a plan and timeline for the migration.
Get your data ready for migration
As mentioned earlier, the data migration process itself might not be as complex since Veeva will provide substantial support. However, to ensure its success, you need to prepare your data, which means:
- Assuring consistency and quality of all data that you’re planning to migrate.
- Assessing the inconsistencies and correcting them before or during the migration. All bad-quality data must be fixed or removed before moving it to the new system.
- Deciding whether all your data must be migrated – perhaps migrating only the last three years’ worth of data would suffice.
Assure all existing integrations are described and documented
This stage ensures proper data lineage. Together with a data catalog, which serves as a single source of truth on critical organization information, data lineage guarantees proper metadata management.
Your data comes with a track record of all the data dependencies, sources, flows, and changes that happened before you migrated to Vault. This way, your organization will retain continuity and remain confident about the accuracy of CRM records.
Conclusion
Given Veeva’s commitment to supporting customers during the data migration process, it should be practically a stress-free experience. Especially for those companies whose majority of data is standard, as it will be dealt with entirely by Veeva. However, big organizations, which handle large data volumes and have a lot of custom objects might face some extra challenges and need additional support. C&F can help with:
- Cleaning and enriching data during the data migration process, allowing you to better organize your data.
- Handling change, assessing the impact that data migration will have on the company, and running tests to verify the data validity. Ultimately, effective data migration is the company’s responsibility, not Veeva’s.
- Reimagining your existing data structure. Moving to the new CRM can serve as a good opportunity to evaluate how the change can optimize business processes and boost team productivity.
Assess the business impact of each existing custom object and shortlist those that should be migrated to the new system. C&F will also shed light on why certain objects might no longer be required – either due to a lack of real-life business application or a new feature in Vault that serves the same purpose. s at C&F or explore our comprehensive solutions tailored to your needs.