Veeva adds new e-detailing capabilities to its CRM platform

At its annual user conference, Veeva (Pleasanton, CA) introduced a set of new tools meant to integrate closely with its flagship product, Veeva CRM, which is used by pharma reps and sales teams to coordinate face-to-face calls, communications and stored data with physicians and other clients. At the same time, a growing list of solution partners, ranging from global consulting firms like Deloitte or Ernst & Young, to specialized IT services providers in training like Eagle Productivity, were on hand to demonstrate their integration with Veeva.,

The new products:

• Veeva Align handles territory planning and resource allocations within sales teams, while helping to define multichannel plans of action in a single country or worldwide
• Veeva CRM Meetings for the planning, management, and execution of group meetings with healthcare professionals (HCPs).
• Veeva CRM Engage, announced last month, is a digital platform for engaging with customers online, anytime, anywhere, through any device. Now HCPs can have self-service access to personalized information via the web with interactive content and services like ‘click-to-chat’ and ‘schedule a visit.’ Veeva Engage brings digital into a fully integrated multichannel mix and enables reuse of content from other channels including Veeva CLM.
• Veeva CRM Co-browse is an online collaboration solution for real-time screen sharing with customers. Communications can be shared between physicians, reps, and other parts of a commercial team such as call centers or medical affairs.

CRM Engage is available now; CRM Co-browse is planned for general availability in Q4 2014; Align and CRM Meetings are planned for Q2 2015. Collectively, Veeva is branding its existing and new products as the Commercial Cloud (Veeva was one of the early proponents of cloud-based services for the pharma industry, and its products are enabled on both Apple iPad and Microsoft Surface platforms). Between the branded Veeva offerings and its solution partners, Veeva wants to establish an “ecosystem” for the sales process, says Matt Wallach, president and co-founder. And while some of its new products intrude on the application space of its solution partners, Veeva will keep an open API and allow clients to mix and match service offerings.

The guiding principle of the Commercial Cloud, says Wallach, is “to put the pharma rep in the middle” of all the interactions and communications with healthcare providers. “Reps are important, and reps need to be able to make best use of their time in meaningful interactions with customers, and to minimize the time spent looking up contact data or retrieving multichannel interactions.” He also emphasizes that the company is moving toward global, single implementations of its products, so that IT departments at pharma companies can manage activities globally.