Chief financial officers of oil and gas companies "face a broad set of challenges as they are charged with helping keep their companies on their journeys to high performance," according to a recent report by Accenture. The interconnectedness of today’s markets and "turbulence in a single national economy" now has a “spillover” effect to other economies worldwide, according to the company. The shifting nature of global supply and demand has called into question the economics around oil and gas projects. Geopolitics and the value of the dollar continue to influence oil prices. "We could possibly see some other economic impacts, such as consolidation among companies and postponement in alternative energy development," the firm reports. Today more than ever, CFOs are called on to manage company finances and provide strategic guidance to the chief executive, manage costs aggressively, find new sourcing models such as shared services and outsourcing, and continue to drive down finance costs and mitigate financial exposure. Business leaders continue to demand increasing levels of insight from finance to drive better business decision making. Far from merely acting as a company’s “head accountant,” today’s CFOs face a broad set of challenges they must address to help keep their companies on the path to high performance.