You need to capture it (note the parentheses):

#!/usr/bin/perl -l

my $para = "xyz-xyz-xyz-xyz-v09.11-e020xyz-xyz-xyz-";

my ($string) = $para =~ m/(v\d{2}\.\d{2}-[a-z]\d{3})/;

print $string;   # v09.11-e020
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