As a former public accounting auditor, I have been through my fair share of busy seasons which usually ran from September to April. For me, this was a character-building and learning opportunity that I am privileged and thankful that I got to experience in my career. However, like most, I realized this was not what I wanted to do long term.

Today's controller is confronted with two developments: on one hand, increasing usage of mobile applications for all employees, steady growth of IT-supported operational resource planning systems and the hype towards Big Data result in an increasing volume of direct business information. On the other hand, more and more detailed accounting standards and higher requirements for compliance and governance enforce heavier control activities.

Organisations are finding it increasingly hard to plan or predict future performance due to the fast pace and complexity engendered by today's global, online business environment. And yet, within the vast quantities of data. available to management, there are tell-tale trends and correlations that reveal valuable insights to the direction they should take to maximise results.

The Physics of Wall Street by James Owen Weatherall is an interesting story about the influence of physics in finance.  FP&A practitioners can find material in this book to help them improve their work.  For me three areas of the book serve as meaningful reference material.