The pandemic has changed the way companies interact with customers ranging from communication to product delivery. Using data to understand customer behavior is crucially important, and M&A will help businesses get there faster. Cloud-computing provider Twilio Inc. (NYSE: TWLO) is making acquisitions. Twilio is buying Segment for $3.2 billion. San Francisco-based Segment helps companies manage the streams of data they collect about their customers. “Data silos destroy great customer experiences,” says Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson. “Segment lets developers and companies break down those silos and build a complete picture of their customer. Combined with Twilio’s customer engagement platform, we can create more personalized, timely and impactful engagement across customer service, marketing, analytics, product and sales.” Some of Twilio’s customers include Airbnb, Instacart, Lyft and Uber. “The businesses that deliver the best experiences are the ones that know their customers well and use customer data to provide more relevant interactions," according to Twilio. “However, wrangling these customer insights is extremely difficult as the information is typically spread across disparate systems and functions throughout an organization.” The need for data software during the pandemic is attracting other dealmakers including Salesforce (NYSE: CRM). The latter completed its $15.7 billion acquisition of customer analytics provider Tableau Software in August 2020. For Salesforce, Tableau helps position the company to play a bigger role in driving digital transformation, allowing businesses to tap into data and insights and make better decisions to improve customer experiences. “Together we can transform the way people understand not only their customers, but their whole world—delivering powerful AI-driven insights across all types of data and use cases for people of every skill level,” says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. As part of Salesforce, Tableau will be better positioned to accelerate its mission to help people see and understand data, the target adds. “We will deliver more value to customers faster with a broader and deeper analytics platform, fueled by Salesforce’s customer intelligence platform,” says Tableau CEO Adam Selipsky. “As part of Salesforce we will deliver more value to customers faster with a broader and deeper analytics platform, fueled by Salesforce’s customer intelligence platform.” M&A will pick up in the sector, as data becomes more valuable.