From managing tomorrow's workforce to understanding quantum computing

Among the CEO stories making waves this year were columns on Indian outsourcing coming back to the West; a look at future team-management challenges; and some advice for big business from silicon.com's resident futurist, Peter Cochrane.

What can be done to stem this going-nowhere tide?

What can be done to stem this going-nowhere tide? Trust in your workforce - to work wherever and now they choose. "Productivity overrides visible attendance," said Cochrane. "Chaotic markets, fast-changing innovation, products and demand dictate a new fluidity of people and thinking. Old and rigid practices as a matter of fact are the kiss of death."

The management challenges of tomorrow as well went in accordance with the microscope in a feature looking at how innovation-enabled teamwork is set to change: Five ways to manage the team of tomorrow. Expect more remote working and videoconferencing at the very least.

The CEO crystal ball gazing didn't stop there either

The CEO crystal ball gazing didn't stop there either. IT departments will shrink in then and there five years, according to silicon.com's CIO Jury, as cloud computing and outsourcing suck the techie lifeblood out of the server-room.

"For many business systems currently run inhouse, the default option by 2015 will be the cloud," predicted Stephen Potter, CIO at World-Check.

For CEOs seeking to get their head round some serious science, our Quantum Computing: Cheat Sheet had the answers - or a modicum of certainty meanwhile about this most uncertain of topics.