Background: A Major UK Pharma Company with a Fragmented Salesforce Estate
The company is one of the UK's leading pharmaceutical organisations, operating across the full drug lifecycle — research and development, clinical trials, manufacturing, regulatory affairs, and commercial operations. With over 50,000 employees across the UK, continental Europe, and expanding markets, the company relies on Salesforce to manage its complex ecosystem of healthcare professional (HCP) relationships, medical affairs interactions, commercial sales, marketing campaigns, and increasingly, R&D collaboration.
Salesforce had been adopted progressively across the organisation over multiple contract cycles. Health Cloud managed HCP engagement and regulatory-compliant interactions for the medical affairs and commercial teams. Sales Cloud supported the pharmaceutical field sales force — medical representatives (med reps) covering GP practices, hospitals, and specialist centres across multiple European markets. Marketing Cloud drove omni-channel HCP engagement campaigns, product launches, and medical education programmes. Veeva CRM (built on Salesforce) was used alongside native Salesforce products in some therapeutic areas, creating licensing overlap. Premium add-ons including Einstein Analytics, Salesforce Shield, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), and Data Cloud had been purchased at various points to support specific commercial and R&D initiatives.
The result was a Salesforce estate characterised by escalating costs driven by organic expansion, project-based add-on accumulation, and contractual rigidity that did not accommodate the pharmaceutical industry's fundamentally project-driven nature — where commercial teams scale up and down with drug launches and patent expirations, and R&D collaboration requirements shift with the clinical pipeline. The CIO engaged Redress Compliance to conduct an independent assessment and manage the contract renegotiation.
"Pharmaceutical companies present unique Salesforce challenges because their CRM needs are project-driven, not steady-state. A drug launch requires a massive temporary scale-up of field sales force licences, marketing campaign volumes, and HCP engagement tools — and the scale-down after the launch period is equally dramatic. Patent expirations can reduce the field force for a therapeutic area by 50–70 % within 18 months. Salesforce's annual per-user commitment model does not accommodate this lifecycle — and pharmaceutical companies that renew without project-based flexibility provisions structurally overpay throughout their contract term."
The Challenges: Pipeline-Driven Demand, Regulatory Complexity, and Add-On Sprawl
Drug Pipeline Lifecycle Mismatch
The company's Salesforce requirements fluctuated dramatically with drug launch timelines and patent expirations. A major product launch required rapid scale-up: 500–1,000 additional med rep licences, expanded Marketing Cloud capacity for HCP engagement campaigns, and Health Cloud provisioning for new therapeutic area relationships. Conversely, patent expirations triggered field force reductions — therapeutic areas losing exclusivity could see 50–70 % headcount reductions within 12–18 months. The existing Salesforce contract locked the company into annual commitments that could only increase, creating millions in waste as the commercial portfolio evolved.
R&D and Clinical Trial Complexity
The company's R&D teams had adopted Salesforce for clinical trial site management, investigator relationship tracking, and medical science liaison (MSL) engagement. These R&D Salesforce use cases were fundamentally project-based — a Phase III clinical trial might require Salesforce access for 200 users for 24 months, then zero after the trial concluded. Under the existing contract, these project licences continued renewing indefinitely after the trial teams were reassigned, creating a persistent baseline of unused R&D licences that accumulated with each new trial cycle.
Regulatory and Compliance Requirements
Pharmaceutical HCP interactions are subject to ABPI Code of Practice (UK), EFPIA Code (Europe), GDPR, and MHRA/EMA promotional regulations — requiring comprehensive audit trails, consent management, and interaction recording. Salesforce Shield had been purchased broadly to provide encryption and event monitoring across the estate, but the level of Shield protection required varied significantly by user role: med reps recording HCP interactions needed full Shield capabilities, while internal commercial analysts and marketing operations staff required only standard Salesforce security. The broad deployment inflated Shield costs significantly beyond what regulatory compliance actually required.
Veeva/Salesforce Overlap
The company used Veeva CRM (built on the Salesforce platform) alongside native Salesforce products, creating licensing complexity and cost overlap. Some therapeutic areas ran on Veeva while others used native Salesforce Sales Cloud and Health Cloud — a legacy of divisional procurement decisions and acquisition integrations. Users in the Veeva therapeutic areas also held native Salesforce licences for cross-functional reporting and analytics, creating duplicate licensing costs. The Veeva/Salesforce boundary was unclear, making it difficult to determine which users genuinely needed both platforms versus which could operate on one.
Phase 1: Comprehensive Usage and Contract Review
Division-by-Division Usage Assessment
Redress conducted a granular Salesforce usage audit across all divisions: commercial field sales (the largest user group), medical affairs and MSLs, marketing and omni-channel engagement, R&D and clinical operations, and corporate functions. For each division, the analysis mapped login frequency, feature adoption, data creation patterns, and workflow utilisation. Key findings: approximately 20 % of commercial licences showed low activity (logged in less than monthly — typically associated with therapeutic areas that had experienced patent expiry headcount reductions), R&D project licences from three concluded clinical trials were still active, and Marketing Cloud send volumes were provisioned at 2.5× actual campaign usage.
Premium Feature and Add-On Audit
Redress mapped every premium feature against actual adoption and regulatory necessity. The audit identified £1.2 million in annual waste: Salesforce Shield deployed across all 8,000+ Salesforce users when regulatory requirements mandated it only for ~3,000 users with HCP interaction data. Einstein Analytics licensed broadly but actively used by only ~400 commercial analytics specialists. Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) purchased for an HCP email programme that had been migrated to Veeva CRM Approved Email. Data Cloud provisioned for a customer data platform initiative that was paused pending GDPR assessment. Several AppExchange compliance integrations replaced by in-house validated systems.
Veeva/Salesforce Boundary Clarification
Redress conducted a detailed mapping of the Veeva–Salesforce overlap, identifying which users required both platforms, which could operate exclusively on Veeva, and which needed only native Salesforce. The analysis revealed approximately 1,200 users holding dual licences — Veeva CRM for field activity plus native Salesforce for analytics and reporting — where Veeva's native reporting capabilities or Salesforce Platform licences (rather than full Sales Cloud) would satisfy their requirements. This boundary clarification became a significant source of cost savings.
Phase 2: Optimisation — Eliminating £1.2 M in Waste
| Category | Finding | Action Taken | Annual Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premium feature rationalisation | Shield over-deployed (8,000 vs 3,000 required); Einstein broadly licensed (~5 % adoption); Pardot migrated to Veeva; Data Cloud paused | Shield restricted to HCP-facing roles; Einstein to analytics specialists; Pardot terminated; Data Cloud suspended | £480 K |
| R&D project licence clean-up | Licences from 3 concluded clinical trials still renewing; MSL licences for therapeutic areas exited | Terminated concluded-project licences; implemented project-end decommission process | £280 K |
| Veeva/Salesforce de-duplication | ~1,200 users with dual licences; native Salesforce used primarily for reporting available via Veeva or Platform licence | Converted dual-licence users to Veeva + Salesforce Platform where appropriate; eliminated redundant Sales Cloud licences | £250 K |
| Low-activity commercial clean-up | ~20 % commercial licences with minimal login; post-patent-expiry therapeutic areas not right-sized | Reduced seat counts to active users; converted low-activity users to Platform licences | £190 K |
| Total waste eliminated | Annual savings from optimisation alone | £1.2 M | |
Phase 3: Strategic Roadmap — Pipeline-Aligned Licensing
Scale-Up / Scale-Down Provisions
The roadmap centred on aligning Salesforce licensing to the drug pipeline lifecycle. Launch provisions allow the company to scale up to 1,000 additional field sales licences, expanded Marketing Cloud capacity, and new Health Cloud therapeutic area instances within 30 days of a launch decision — at locked-in pricing. Conversely, patent expiry scale-down provisions allow licence reductions of up to 30 % for specific therapeutic areas experiencing exclusivity loss — preventing the accumulation of idle licences as the commercial portfolio evolves.
Clinical Trial Time-Limited Access
R&D Salesforce usage was restructured as project-based licences with defined start and end dates tied to clinical trial timelines. When a Phase II or Phase III trial requires Salesforce access for site management, investigator engagement, or MSL coordination, licences are provisioned for the trial duration and automatically terminate when the trial concludes. This eliminates the persistent baseline of post-trial licences that had accumulated under the previous indefinite-commitment model — the single largest source of R&D licensing waste.
Targeted Shield and Audit Capabilities
Salesforce Shield was restructured to align with actual regulatory requirements by role. HCP-facing roles (med reps, MSLs, medical affairs managers) who record regulated interactions require Shield encryption, event monitoring, and field audit trail — approximately 3,000 users. Internal roles (commercial analytics, marketing operations, corporate functions) require only standard Salesforce security. This tiered compliance model meets ABPI, EFPIA, GDPR, and MHRA requirements at significantly lower cost than the previous blanket Shield deployment.
Phase 4: Benchmarking and Negotiation — 32 % Cost Reduction
Redress benchmarked the company's Salesforce pricing against peer UK and European pharmaceutical companies — including mid-cap and large-cap pharma firms with comparable European commercial operations and field force sizes. The benchmarking revealed the company was paying 15–28 % above median market rates across core Sales Cloud, Health Cloud, and Marketing Cloud products — a gap that had widened through successive renewals with compounding annual escalators.
| Metric | Previous Contract | New Contract (Post-Negotiation) |
|---|---|---|
| Annual Salesforce cost | Baseline (100 %) with 7 % annual escalators | 68 % of previous — 32 % reduction with capped escalators |
| Drug launch flexibility | Fixed annual commitments; no scale-up/down provisions | ±30 % therapeutic area adjustment; 1,000-licence launch pool at locked pricing |
| R&D licensing | Indefinite commitments; project licences renewing after trial conclusion | Time-limited project licences with automatic termination at trial end |
| Shield deployment | Broad deployment across all 8,000+ users | Targeted to ~3,000 HCP-facing roles; standard security for remainder |
| Price escalators | 7 % annual escalators without caps | 3 % annual cap on all price increases |
| Data residency | Standard Salesforce DPA; mixed UK/US processing | UK data residency (Hyperforce UK); GDPR-enhanced DPA; MHRA audit cooperation |
| 3-year total savings | £5 million — £1.2 M optimisation + £3.8 M negotiated discounts and structural savings | |
📊 Key Negotiated Concessions
- Drug launch scale-up pool: Up to 1,000 additional field sales licences activated within 30 days at locked-in pricing — enabling rapid commercial scale-up for product launches without renegotiation
- Patent expiry scale-down: Licence reductions of up to 30 % for specific therapeutic areas experiencing exclusivity loss — preventing payment for idle licences as products mature
- R&D project licensing: Time-limited Salesforce access for clinical trial teams with automatic termination — eliminating post-trial licence accumulation
- Tiered Shield deployment: Regulatory-grade encryption and audit for HCP-facing roles only; standard security for internal roles — meeting ABPI/EFPIA/MHRA requirements at lower cost
- 3 % escalator cap: Annual price increases capped at 3 % versus the previous 7 % — protecting against Salesforce's compounding escalation
- UK data residency: Salesforce Hyperforce UK deployment guaranteeing UK-based data processing; GDPR-enhanced DPA with explicit provisions for pharmaceutical HCP data; MHRA audit cooperation clause
- Veeva co-existence terms: Explicit contractual provisions for Salesforce Platform licensing alongside Veeva CRM — preventing pricing disputes as the Veeva/Salesforce boundary evolves
- AI expansion rights: Option to adopt Einstein AI for HCP engagement scoring and commercial analytics at locked-in pricing if pilot demonstrates validated ROI
Client Testimonial
"Redress Compliance's expertise in Salesforce negotiations helped us unlock substantial savings while ensuring our agreement aligns with our strategic goals. Their support has been vital in optimising our investment in digital tools and positioning us for future growth."
— Chief Information Officer, UK Pharmaceutical Company
Phase 5: Governance and Ongoing Management
Pipeline-Linked Licence Management
Redress implemented a licence management framework linked to the drug pipeline. When a product enters pre-launch phase, the governance framework triggers Salesforce licence provisioning aligned to the launch plan (field force size, marketing campaign scope, HCP engagement targets). When a product approaches patent expiry, the framework initiates proactive licence reduction — ensuring the Salesforce estate contracts in step with the commercial wind-down rather than accumulating idle licences for 12–18 months before anyone notices.
R&D Project Decommission Process
The governance framework includes an automatic Salesforce decommission trigger tied to clinical trial milestones. When a trial concludes (whether successful, terminated, or transitioned to the next phase with different team composition), the Salesforce licences provisioned for that trial are flagged for decommission within 30 days. This eliminates the pattern of concluded-trial licences renewing indefinitely — the most common source of R&D Salesforce waste in pharmaceutical companies.
Quarterly Review and Procurement Training
Quarterly Salesforce reviews compare actual usage against licensed quantities by therapeutic area and functional division, assess upcoming pipeline events (launches, Phase transitions, patent expirations), and prepare adjustment requests for the annual anniversary. Redress delivered training covering Salesforce pricing dynamics, pharmaceutical-specific licensing considerations (Veeva co-existence, Shield regulatory requirements, Health Cloud vs Sales Cloud selection), and the governance procedures for new Salesforce purchases — ensuring every expansion request is evaluated against existing capacity and validated business need.
Outcome: Before and After
| Metric | Before Redress Engagement | After Redress Engagement |
|---|---|---|
| Annual Salesforce cost | Escalating 15 %+ annually; 7 % compounding escalators | 32 % reduction; 3 % cap; £5 M saved over 3 years |
| Drug pipeline alignment | Fixed commitments; no scale-up/down for launches or patent expirations | Launch pool + patent expiry scale-down; licensing follows the pipeline |
| R&D licensing | Indefinite project licences; 3 concluded trials still renewing | Time-limited project licensing; automatic decommission at trial end |
| Premium features | £1.2 M in underutilised features; Shield broadly deployed | Waste eliminated; Shield targeted to HCP-facing roles; tiered compliance |
| Veeva/Salesforce overlap | ~1,200 dual-licence users; unclear platform boundary | De-duplicated; co-existence terms contractualised; Platform licences where appropriate |
| Total financial impact | £5 million saved over 3 years — 32 % annual cost reduction | |
Lessons for Pharmaceutical Companies Negotiating Salesforce
Align Licensing to the Drug Pipeline — Not the Calendar
Pharmaceutical commercial operations are driven by product launches and patent expirations — not steady-state annual demand. A major launch can require 500–1,000 additional field sales licences that are needed within weeks of the launch decision, while a patent expiry can reduce a therapeutic area's field force by 50–70 % over 12–18 months. Salesforce's standard annual commitment model does not accommodate this reality. Launch scale-up pools and patent expiry scale-down provisions are essential structural terms for any pharmaceutical Salesforce contract — without them, the company pays for peak capacity throughout the product lifecycle.
Implement Project-Based R&D Licensing
Clinical trials, medical affairs initiatives, and R&D collaborations are time-limited by nature — yet Salesforce licences purchased for these projects typically renew indefinitely under standard contract terms. In our experience, pharmaceutical companies accumulate 12–24 months of post-project licences across multiple concluded trials before anyone identifies the waste. Time-limited project licensing with automatic termination triggers eliminates this pattern and prevents R&D Salesforce costs from growing independently of the actual clinical pipeline.
Right-Size Regulatory Compliance Features
ABPI, EFPIA, GDPR, and MHRA regulations require audit trails and data protection for HCP interactions — but not every Salesforce user handles HCP data. Deploying Salesforce Shield (encryption, event monitoring, field audit trail) across the entire estate when only 30–40 % of users have regulatory exposure inflates compliance costs by 2–3×. A tiered compliance model — full Shield for HCP-facing roles, standard security for internal users — meets every regulatory requirement at a fraction of the cost.
Clarify the Veeva/Salesforce Boundary
Many pharmaceutical companies operate Veeva CRM alongside native Salesforce products — a legacy of divisional procurement, therapeutic area differences, and acquisition integrations. This co-existence frequently creates dual-licence situations where users hold both Veeva and Salesforce licences for overlapping functionality. Before any Salesforce renegotiation, clarify which users genuinely need both platforms versus which can operate on Veeva alone (with Salesforce Platform for cross-functional reporting if needed). The de-duplication savings are typically significant — and the contractual co-existence terms prevent future pricing disputes as the platform boundary shifts.