- 97% of enterprise decision makers believe COVID-19 accelerated their company's digital transformation efforts Twilio(https://www.twilio.com/) (NYSE:TWLO), the leading cloud communications platform, announced on July 15, 2020 the results of a global survey measuring the impact and outlook of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses' digital engagement strategies. Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200821/2893116-1logo To better understand the magnitude of COVID-19 and the lasting effect it will have on business and customer engagement, Twilio surveyed over 2,500 enterprise decision makers globally to gauge the effect on their company's digital transformation and communication roadmap. The COVID-19 Digital Engagement Report(https://www.twilio.com/covid-19-digital-engagement-report) is a snapshot of how businesses have addressed the complex challenges posed by this crisis and how they will continue to evolve moving forward. "Over the last few months, we've seen years-long digital transformation roadmaps compressed into days and weeks in order to adapt to the new normal as a result of COVID-19. Our customers in nearly every industry have had to identify new ways to communicate with their customers and stakeholders – from patients, to students, to shoppers, and even employees – essentially overnight," said Glenn Weinstein, Chief Customer Officer at Twilio. "Cloud scale, speed, and agility are enabling organizations to innovate faster than ever. We believe the solutions being built today will be the standard for digital engagement in the future." 300 companies in Japan participated in the survey and key findings specific to Japan include: -COVID-19 has accelerated Japanese companies' digital communications strategy by 7.5 years, the highest acceleration across the 844 Asia Pacific companies surveyed. -98% of Japanese companies report that COVID-19 has sped up digital transformation -Top barriers to digital transformation in Japan are: lack of clear strategy (45%), getting executive buy-in or approval (43%), lack of skills and know-how (39%), and reluctance to replace legacy software (39%). -95% of Japanese companies report that COVID-19 helped break down barriers to digital transformation -Japanese organisations are more than 3 times more likely to be digital transformation leaders than those in Singapore and Australia. -Over 1 in 4 Japanese companies saw a dramatic increase in digital transformation budgets, which is 9 percentage points ahead of Australian organisations. -99% of companies in Japan are seeking new ways of engaging customers as a result of COVID-19 and 90% say their organisation is very or somewhat likely to expand their digital communication channels as the world reopens. -99% say digital technologies used to enable remote workers during COVID-19 will open up opportunities for working remotely. -38% of companies in Japan started using Interactive Voice Response and live chat for the first time as a result of COVID-19. They also implemented 3.7 net-new channels and dramatically increased the use of 4.5 digital communications channels in response to the pandemic. The full Japan report finding can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jpcZL6dwnKDhSXI8ZRM_5aJ3FZKGBfVg/view . Mr. Yoshihiro Konno, Country Director, Japan, will also be available for a media interview. In comparison, the global key findings of the COVID-19 Digital Engagement Report include: -COVID-19 was the digital accelerant of the decade. COVID-19 accelerated companies' digital communications strategy by an average of 6 years. 97% of enterprise decision makers believe the pandemic sped up their company's digital transformation. -Digital communication is the new lifeblood for business. Almost all companies (95%) are seeking new ways of engaging customers as a result of COVID-19. 92% say transforming digital communications is extremely or very critical to address current business challenges. -Previous inhibitors to innovation have been broken down. 79% of respondents say that COVID-19 increased the budget for digital transformation. Companies report easing of barriers such as: lack of clear strategy (37%), getting executive approval (37%), reluctance to replace legacy software (35%), and lack of time (34%). -Omnichannel communication is taking on new importance. 92% say their organization is very or somewhat likely to expand digital communication channels as the world reopens. Over half (54%) said COVID-19 propelled focus on omnichannel communications and 53% added new channels amid the pandemic. 1 in 3 companies started using live chat and IVR channels for the first time as a result of COVID-19. See the report now(https://ahoy.twilio.com/covid-19-digital-engagement-report) and visit: Twilio.com/covid(https://www.twilio.com/covid) for deeper insight into how businesses can build for the new normal. Methodology Twilio conducted a five-minute online survey of 2,569 enterprise decision-makers in June 2020. There were 225 to 300 survey respondents each from Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The respondents were Directors and above in Corporate Communications, Customer Experience, Customer or Technical Support, Data Analytics or Business Intelligence, Executive Leadership or Administration, IT or Engineering, Innovation, Marketing, Operations, Product Design/Development, Sales or Business Development, or Strategic Planning at companies with 500+ employees. The survey was designed and analyzed by Lawless Research; respondents did not know that Twilio was the sponsor. About Twilio Millions of developers around the world have used Twilio to unlock the magic of communications to improve any human experience. Twilio has democratized communications channels like voice, text, chat, video, and email by virtualizing the world's communications infrastructure through APIs that are simple enough for any developer to use, yet robust enough to power the world's most demanding applications. By making communications a part of every software developer's toolkit, Twilio is enabling innovators across every industry — from emerging leaders to the world's largest organizations — to reinvent how companies engage with their customers. SOURCE: Twilio