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05

It’s time to build

Great digital experience doesn’t come in a box

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The pandemic clarified the advantages of building solutions internally and iterating quickly as needs change, especially for enterprises that may have been hesitant to build in the past. Faced with a crisis, organizations of every size turned to their developers to create digital solutions fast. Leaders at every level are recognizing how crucial developer teams are to their business success, and this mindset is changing how organizations large and small approach digital adoption.

Developers were unleashed.

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report software developers were crucial to solving business challenges that arose from the pandemic

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of C-level executives report developers were crucial to solving business challenges brought on by COVID

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1/3

companies are choosing to build with programmable solutions

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report they are more likely to build communications solutions to meet customer demands in the future

The majority of companies will increase use of programmable solutions in 2021.

companies are building digital communications on Twilio *

* Active customer accounts

“CPaaS is driving the adoption of APIs beyond the cloud-native segment and use for internal operations. This will continue to revolutionize enterprise customer engagement strategies over the next few years.”

IDC Worldwide Communications Platform-as-a-Service Forecast, 2020-2024. Doc # US46287520.

What's next

As digital transformation reaches the last mile — front-end customer engagement — it’s becoming clear that the way you make a customer feel is as important as your core product or service. Great online experience can’t be bought, it must be built. Forward-looking organizations are now focused on building the best customer experiences around their product, using flexible software building blocks (APIs) to set themselves apart. Businesses that are able to listen to customers and adapt to what they hear at the pace of software will win.

Norwegian Refugee Council

The Twilio Engagement Builder Spotlight recognizes what innovative organizations have built to stay connected to their customers and communities.

Norwegian Refugee Council, an independent humanitarian organization delivering medical and financial support in 30 countries, ordinarily helps people face-to-face. But in 2020, NRC built a custom, omni-channel community engagement solution to provide two-way communications, social services and support to people displaced by conflict in some of the most challenged parts of the world. “NRC is taking advantage of digital communications to reach more people faster and with greater efficiency,” said Paul Cornu, emergency response adviser at Norwegian Refugee Council.

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Five trends defining digital engagement in 2021

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Methodology & data sources

This report draws insight from Twilio platform data, which reflects digital engagement activity that occurred on Twilio in 2020. The report also includes original research from a survey of over 2,500 enterprise decision-makers across the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, France, Spain, Italy, Japan, and Singapore. The research was fielded by Lawless Research to understand how businesses view the role of digital engagement. Survey respondents are full-time employees of companies with 500 to 25,000+ employees, from the director to executive level.

This report contains statistical data, estimates, and expectations that are based on third-party industry publications and other publicly available information, as well as other information based on our internal sources or collected through our commercial relationships. These do not represent, and should not be construed as, indicators of Twilio’s historical or future financial performance, and are solely presented as context for broader market trends.