After years of driving ambitious digital transformation programs, North American businesses need to extend their digital-intensive efforts to talent management and ESG.

The twin motors of technology and innovation have long driven corporate America. But after much time and attention spent on digital transformation, more is needed to be future-fit.

Amid tumultuous and often unprecedented events, North American businesses need to extend and blend data-intensive ways of working into two key areas that will help them get the full value of their tech investment and be perpetually prepared for the future: talent management and their environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts.

In our work to define what it takes to be future-ready—and how close businesses are to reaching a future-ready state—Cognizant commissioned Economist Impact to conduct a survey of 2,000 senior executives from across industries and geographies, as well as create a future-ready benchmarking tool (see our full report, "Ready for anything: what it means to be a modern business").

Our own analysis of this data underscores what executives in North America and globally need to do now to prepare.

For more, visit the Modern Business section of our website, or contact us.