Veeva Systems Inc at Citi Global TMT Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : I thought to kick things off, it would be great just -- we're mostly tech investors here in the room, but you obviously service a very important part of the market being the life sciences industry. So can you just high level just speak to the industry trends that you're seeing across life sciences, what are kind of the key priorities of your customer base? Is there heading into the back half of the year?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Great. And to sort of provide some more context on there, you reported results last week, results and guidance came in above expectations. I think it was a reassuring quarter for a lot of investors. As you think about where we are in the life sciences kind of macroeconomic cycle, there have been some pressures around certainly funding for biotech to the interest rate environment. You've seen some lower trial volumes impact a lot of your life science and tools customer base. It seems like maybe there's some signs of some of that pressure easing. Take us through what happened last quarter. Did you see any improvement in the overall environment? And if you didn't, what would it sort of take for you to call an overall improvement in sort of the underlying life sciences environment?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Okay. Okay. Great. So thinking more about the business, obviously, you got the commercial side, the R&D. Starting off on commercial, I thought what was interesting was sort of the increased momentum that you saw on Vault CRM, I think, 14 new customer wins in the quarter. Can you just talk about the type of customers that signed up or these migrations from a -- to Vault from Veeva CRM, I think, is the appropriate terminology. Just help us understand the momentum that you're seeing there.

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Yes. I'm sure we'll all be paying close attention to that first customer and the ones that follow. I guess as we think about the broader top 20 pharma customers, what's sort of been the reaction to your announcement of not renewing the sales force agreement? And how do you sort of see the response from Salesforce in terms of announcing their own product here?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Yes. On the Salesforce side, they've made some interesting announcements in terms of partnering with IQVIA. What have you observed, obviously, I'm sure you have your own views of Salesforce's strategy. But just in terms of the day-to-day interactions with customers, what's sort of the customer response been by some of the sales force announcements that you've seen? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2024 / 7:00PM, VEEV.N - Veeva Systems Inc at Citi Global TMT Conference

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Right. Right. It will be interesting to see what announcements, if any, come out of Dreamforce in -- I think, in a couple of weeks' time. As we think about -- you mentioned the top 20 pharma customer is going to be doing the migration and going live next year, which is pretty impressive considering the recency of when this product was released, how should we think about like the shape of those decisions by additional top 20 pharmas, like are you expecting this to the majority to sort of announce their decision in the next year or 2? What does that adoption curve look like?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Okay. Great. So staying on the commercial side, I wanted to hit on the data side of the business. And I think recently, there's been a lot of positive discussion around Veeva Compass. Can you just frame for investors sort of the strategy with Compass and kind of getting more into that patient and prescriber data. How are you sort of positioning those to both your large top 20 pharma customers as well as some of the emerging biotechs in the space.

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Got it. Okay. On the topic of AI, I think we've asked every company here some flavor of the AI question. But for Veeva, I think it's been interesting that I would describe your approach to AI is a bit more reserve and potentially a bit more cautious, not having a ton of announcements and obviously, you're dealing with an industry that is very conservative and conscious of the decisions they're making. Can you sort of just frame for the audience what Veeva's AI strategy is? And what would it take for you to sort of go out and try to package something or monetize something more significantly than you are today?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Yes. And I know there's been some updates and enhancements to your APIs, allowing for faster access and everything. As you think about the partner ecosystem and combining with the fact that you have a lot of cash sitting on the balance sheet, is M&A sort of part of the strategy here? In other words, it's say, hey, we're providing these API access partners go out and build something and we see something compelling. Is it maybe makes sense to buy versus build? Or how do you sort of think about that?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Yes. Got it. Okay. So moving over to the R&D side of the business, I think last quarter, you talked about how 7 of the top 20 pharmas are using both your clinical database as well as Vault EDC for data collection and cleaning the clinical side of R&D is very significant. I think it's the biggest TAM within sort of that R&D umbrella, but it's very complex, right? There's some large incumbents in the space. So can you just talk about where we are in terms of that adoption cycle and how much share of the wallet do you feel that you have specifically within the clinical side? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2024 / 7:00PM, VEEV.N - Veeva Systems Inc at Citi Global TMT Conference

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Got it. And as you think about the less than 15% penetration, I mean, what are some of the biggest products or categories within clinical that are sort of hitting that inflection curve or mass market adoption part?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Got it. Vault Basics is also another recent area of focus for you kind of going after the emerging biotech space. How significant of a driver has that been? And what is that sort of -- is those emerging biotechs ultimately mature? Do you -- have you seen any examples of those turning into 7-, 8-figure type commitments as those companies scale?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Got it. Okay. One area that was a bigger topic of discussion, I think, years ago was sort of the R&D suite for outside of life sciences. You targeted some CPG companies and cosmetics and things that could leverage sort of similar quality and safety offerings that you had. How is the progress in the non-life sciences customers going there. Is that still an area of focus? Or do you sort of feel like you've penetrated some of those easy use cases?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Right, right. And if you think broadly within R&D, we talked a lot about clinical. If you look at quality and safety and some of the regulatory stuff, where do you sort of see the biggest momentum? And how much more runway is it still -- are all those kind of less than 15% penetrated or I know safety is probably less than 15% penetrated. But give us an update just sort of where we are in the adoption curve?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Right. And as we think about the sort of near-term business and execution, I know coming out of Q1, you talked about maybe a more second half weighted bookings cadence, seeing a lot of these deals or several deals flip out and close in Q4. This quarter, it sounded like you had a combination of better visibility, maybe some things now closing in Q3. What -- just give investors an update, what are you seeing out there? What's sort of driving folks at this point to maybe pull forward decisions a little bit into Q3 versus Q4? And how are you just giving, I guess, what's sort of the message to your sales team as you go into the second half of the year?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Yes. I was going to ask you some nitty gritty questions about billings, but I know we don't -- and with the CFO in transition, we won't go there. But I did want to ask you about the price increases that were announced on the core CRM side, I think about a year ago, but what's sort of been the customer response? And have you -- is that a factor at all when you're thinking about having these migration customers to Vault CRM?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Great. That's a good summary. So I also wanted to ask you about some of the executive changes at Veeva. So obviously, there's been a change in the CFO role with Brent leaving earlier this year and kind of hiring a former Veeva employee as replacement. There's also been some other changes, I think at the Chief Marketing Officer role and some other titles. I guess before we get into the specifics, just as you've been with the company for a very long time. And as you kind of are having these conversations with Peter about his vision for the next 10 years, like how do you sort of frame the changes that were made in the context of where this business is going to be? And do you sort of feel like you're now at the -- you got the A team assembled to get to that next level?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Great. Maybe in the last couple of minutes, I just wanted to open it up to you, Paul, and see if there was anything that you wanted to hit on that we didn't cover and maybe just leave investors with sort of your view of the story and anything that you want to hammer home?

Question: Tyler Radke - Citi - Analyst : Great. Paul, thank you very much for joining, and thanks, everyone, for participating, and we'll see you at the rest of the conference.