Digital disruption ranges from creating richer, more rewarding customer relationships to honing razor sharp processes and operations. Digital technology is giving organisations the power to reimagine what they can do and what they can be.

According to Fujitsu’s study, almost half (44%) of UK business leaders admit that, in the face of rapid digital disruption, their organisation will not exist in its current form by 2021.

The research also revealed that the vast majority (92%) admit their business needs to evolve in order to thrive in the face of digital. So what digital trends could expect to see next year? Here are my thoughts on what we will see in 2017.

2017 will see the virtual reality and augmented reality market mature

VR and AR technologies have been around for a while, however the market is quickly starting to see maturity in this software through the integration with hardware, and this will grow into fruition in 2017.

There will be more industries than ever before such as manufacturing, logistics and utilities utilise wearable technology to create business solutions that provide business value.

>See also: Digital business trends 2017

No longer will there be the combination of fragmented hardware and additional software, but instead integrated solutions that can transform business process.

For example, this will have huge traction for worker safety. If there is a lone worker fixing a remote utility station, it may take some time fixing certain issues, especially with outdated technology. Couple this problem with the fact that people are living in an ageing population, where more experienced workers have the know-how to fix complex problems but lack the mobility of the younger generation.

If however, by using digital technologies such as augmented reality, providing all of these lone workers technology enabled headsets that can present work instructions and context helping to increase first time fix rates and improve operational performance.

In addition the same technology can now connect the loan worker with HQ, enabling more experienced people to help fix problem leveraging the power of the connected workforce.

The benefits will also be seen in warehousing, using devices to optimise stock picking. By wearing smart glasses, technology can allow employees to use work with both hands and also can help provide instructions if a particular product should be placed in a certain area.

The reality of connected devices will become clearer in 2017

2017 will be the year when businesses start to understand the business value of the Internet of Things. Enterprises will move from technology prototypes to business solutions.

This will allow organisations to focus on where the true value of IoT exists within their businesses. In addition, the realities of full scale operational roll-out of IoT will become clearer for organisations that have sweated their assets for many years.

Cyber security will dominate the news agenda

It is perhaps no surprise that cyber security will be important in 2017. Ensuring new digital technologies such as AR and VR are secure will become of the utmost importance, especially as business solutions continue to engrain themselves into mission critical solutions.

Security is still often an afterthought when it comes to new technology, with many consumers caught up in the excitement of the benefits they can bring.

>See also: The most disruptive enterprise technology trends of 2017

There will be more visible and more material data breaches than ever before, requiring organisations to slow down the speed of adoption of new technology to ensure there are securing their organisations data effectively.

Integration of digital platforms will be at the forefront of business transformation

2017 will start to see more digital platforms than ever before come together to provide business services for the enterprise.

Public cloud platforms are maturing, and we are seeing more opportunities for organisations to integrate multiple public and private cloud services into their legacy systems.

Soon, businesses who don’t adopt public cloud platforms will risk falling behind competitors and face high costs – organisations can no longer afford to rely on expensive legacy systems.

The challenge now comes in integrating the legacy estate into an ecosystem of third party public cloud platforms in a seamless way, that all provide “best of breed” business services.

During 2017, it will be more important than ever before for organisations to embrace digital to be successful.

Customers continue to demand digital services and as the pace of change continues to grow, the only way to thrive in this high-speed environment is to evolve at pace.

>See also: 3 digital transformation trends for UK businesses

Digital disruption is here to stay driving positive and negative impacts.

Key to organisations success when navigating the digital trend will be to leverage the partner eco-system to work more collaboratively driving a new culture of collaboration.

Working together to create new value networks will be critical to help organisations adapt quickly to the pace of change and have a successful 2017.

Sourced by Mike Sewart, director of Fujitsu Digital, EMEIA, Fujitsu