Beyond Veeva vs Salesforce: An SMB Guide to CRM Selection in Life Sciences

For commercial leaders at small and mid-sized life sciences companies, the Veeva-Salesforce split has created a decision point that feels both urgent and overwhelming. The industry conversation has fixated on a single question: Veeva or Salesforce? But according to Branden Mittra, Epista's Director of Advisory & Delivery for Commercial & Medical Excellence, this framing is backwards - and it's setting SMBs up for expensive failures.

"The companies that jump straight into vendor evaluation are the ones we see later struggling with adoption, buried in change orders, and realizing they bought a platform that doesn't match how their organization actually works," Branden explains. "The vendor question is important, but it's the third or fourth question you should be asking, not the first."

For enterprises with dedicated CRM teams, documented processes, and mature governance structures, vendor-first evaluation can work. They've already done the foundational work. But SMBs are typically building the foundation and selecting the platform simultaneously, which is where the trouble can start.

The SMB trap: Why smaller doesn't mean simpler

There's a dangerous assumption circulating among SMB leadership teams: "We're smaller, so this should be simpler." In reality, the opposite is often true.

Enterprises have spent years formalizing their sales processes, MLR workflows, territory management disciplines, and digital governance. When they evaluate CRM platforms, they're matching documented requirements against vendor capabilities. SMBs frequently lack this documentation, which means they're making platform decisions based on vendor demos and marketing rather than actual organizational fit.

"SMBs can have more blind spots, fewer internal experts, and greater consequences for mistakes," Branden notes. "Complexity doesn't scale down proportionally with company size. If anything, the margin for error is smaller because you don't have the same resources to recover from a bad implementation."

Your North Star: Putting operating model first

So, how should your SMB commercial team approach CRM selection in a way that sets them up for continued success?

The roadmap that works starts not with vendors, but with your go-to-market model. Your engagement philosophy - how your sales, marketing, and medical functions interact with HCPs - should be the North Star that drives CRM selection.

Before talking to a single vendor, SMBs need clarity on fundamental questions: Are we prioritizing speed-to-market, customization, or global harmonization? How critical are deep life sciences-specific features versus enterprise-wide CRM integration? Will the organization shift toward high-volume digital engagement or maintain traditional field-rep-led models? How important is IT flexibility versus vendor-managed standardization?

"Most organizations spent 2024 simply trying to understand what the Veeva-Salesforce split meant for them," Branden observes. "By 2025, the choices became clearer. But clarity on the options isn't the same as clarity on what you need. And that's the gap that gets SMBs in trouble."

Don’t let software dictate your strategy. Instead, you should let your GTM archetypes dictate the platform fit. Especially as we approach the coming CRM “traffic jam” of 2028-2029, system support risk increases and alignment becomes non-negotiable.

Let’s map out how to do this.

Step 1: Map Your GTM Archetypes

Before evaluating any platform, understand how your commercial and medical teams actually engage HCPs. This is your North Star.

Identify 3-6 archetypes that define your business. For small and emerging life sciences companies, common examples include:

• Hybrid Reps: Field sales professionals requiring seamless digital tools for compliant remote engagement.

• KAM-Driven Models: Key Account Managers managing institutional sales with complex stakeholder mapping.

• Medical-Led Engagement: MSLs operating under strict compliance firewalls but needing visibility into commercial history.

• Digital Self-Serve: HCP portals or “rep-free” engagement journeys.

These archetypes define the workflows your CRM must support, not just the features you hope to get.

Step 2: The Evaluation Framework

Once you have your archetypes, follow this step-by-step evaluation process. This "reverse-engineered" approach ensures the platform serves the model, not the other way around.

• Define Core Scenarios: For each archetype, list 6-10 critical use cases (e.g., pre-call planning with approved slide access, closed-loop marketing journeys, complex medical inquiry management).

• Translate to Capabilities: Map those scenarios to specific platform needs (e.g., offline access, sample tracking, multichannel orchestration, MLR workflow integration).

• Score by Fit, Not Features: Run a short evaluation where vendors are scored on a 0-3 scale against your archetype scenarios, not a generic feature list.

• Run Archetype Pilots: Choose one critical archetype and two vendors. Run a fast (4-6 week) proof-of-concept using real users and real data flows.

• Select the Pair: Pick the platform that scores highest on your most critical archetypes and document the necessary operating model changes.

Owners: GTM Lead (Archetypes), CRM Architect (Capability Map), Commercial Ops (Pilots), Legal/Compliance (Constraints).

Step 3: Outcomes-to-Requirements Mapping

A traditional requirements checklist won’t protect an SMB in life sciences.

Instead, begin with the strategic inflection point that triggered your CRM decision in the first place.

Are you e.g.:

• Preparing for first commercial launch?
• Scaling from one brand to a portfolio?
• Entering a new geography?
• Modernizing customer engagement?
• Replatforming due to vendor ecosystem changes?

Each of these starting points demands a different CRM emphasis.

If you are preparing for launch, requirements must support territory readiness, compliant HCP activation, and inspection-ready engagement records from day one.

If you are scaling beyond a single brand, the focus shifts to portfolio visibility, structured multi-brand management, and standardized data governance.

If you are entering a new geography, you must account for regulatory alignment, affiliate reporting, and global template design — not just user functionality.

If you are modernizing engagement, the platform must enable consent-aware digital orchestration and true closed-loop visibility across channels.

If you are replatforming, requirements should focus on minimizing migration risk, ensuring regulatory continuity, aligning operating models and securing vendor support during implementation.

The mistake life sciences organizations sometimes make is collapsing these strategic goals into generic feature lists.

Instead, structure vendor discussions around your primary business driver and ask:

• How does this platform enable this transformation?
• What operating model changes are required?
• Where will configuration complexity introduce long-term risk?

That traceability becomes your guardrail during implementation. Without it, requirements drift and SMBs feel that drift faster than enterprises.

The Decider: Adoption Economics

By the time implementation begins in mid-2027, the biggest risk won't be features. It will be people.

This timeline pressure will hit SMBs hardest. The implementation ecosystem is trending swiftly toward a capacity crunch, and while enterprises command vendor attention and resources, SMBs will be deprioritized.

"We are heading toward a resource shortage," Branden explains. "Early adopters will lock in the strongest implementation partners. Companies starting late will contend with limited availability of skilled talent and weaker business analysis capabilities."

Adoption economics—role design, medical-legal ways of working, and change management—will drive success more than any feature delta. A platform with slightly fewer features but high adoption potential is infinitely more valuable than a feature-rich platform that your teams refuse to use.

The Cost of Waiting: It's a P&L Line Item

Finally, view this through a CFO-credible lens. When calculating Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), licensing is often the smallest number on the page.

The real costs lie in implementation, integrations, change management, and the opportunity cost of delay:

• Partner scarcity: By 2027, early adopters will have secured the best talent and attention from vendors. Companies that wait will be fighting for resources in a saturated market.

• Compounding delays: A CRM migration isn't just an IT install. It requires overhauling your business infrastructure, rethinking your engagement model, aligning operating models, redesigning key processes, and preparing the organization for new ways of working.

• Missed modernization: While laggards struggle with migrations in 2029, early movers will have spent three years refining their customer engagement models on superior tech—including generative AI, agentic workflows, and true omnichannel orchestration.

A mid-2029 go-live means decisions need to be made in 2026. By acting now and grounding your decision in your operating model, you buy yourself the time to execute a strategy that doesn't just replicate the past, but sets the foundation for the next decade of commercial excellence.

Conclusion

The market is splitting between Veeva and Salesforce, but there is no single "right" answer for every company. It comes down to re-envisioning and re-inventing your commercial engagement model.

This is why engaging a tech-neutral partner is critical. SMBs need an advisor who can look at the decision not just as a software purchase, but as a business readiness lifecycle, from governance and selection to change management.

Don’t wait for the traffic jam. Get moving today.