Chris Summers knew he had an important set of recommendations to make regarding his company’s strategic operations. Summers had been with Elevalt Ltd. (EVT)—a leading oil field services (OFS) company based in Austin, Texas—for nearly five years. As VP of supply chain management, he often made decisions that had a material impact on the way the company conducted operations. But this was the first time EVT had ever considered consolidating its distribution centers (DCs) in Europe or Africa, which represented a new challenge and a new set of risks. The possibility of a new, centralized distribution center was a hot topic due to EVT’s goal of reducing costs while still maintaining a high level of customer service. Summers’s main concern was presenting a clear, well-reasoned analysis of what he saw as the best options going forward as well as his assessment of each of the possible solutions. It was important that Summers’s recommendation to senior leadership was comprehensive because this issue had become a key priority for EVT, and the outcome would reflect heavily on Summers’s capability as a manager.
