The dōTERRA story is one of humble beginnings originating in Pleasant Grove, Utah, that evolved into month-over-month double digit growth.

dōTERRA is a distiller and manufacturer of high quality essential oils – that can be used to reduce stress, alleviate anxiety and help revolutionize the way families manage their health. They were founded in 2008 and currently serve 3 million customers spread out across 100 countries. The business globally sources its botanicals from over 40 countries which have to undergo rigorous quality checks throughout the supply chain process to ensure that only the purest samples reach the end consumer.

dōTERRA operates rather uniquely under a networked marketing model using a direct selling approach that allows individual distributors called “wellness advocates” to work with customers. This model develops a trust relationship between the customer and wellness advocate, which is evidenced by the fact that, after joining dōTERRA, 68% of all customers regularly reorder — compared to the industry average of near 10%. 90% of these product shipments are ordered via ecommerce, with the other 10% coming through a member services call center by chat, email, or phone.

When dōTERRA was first founded, it started with an outsourced IT model, running on a specialized system for start-up network marketing companies. By 2009, the company had reached $1 million in monthly sales for the first time, and that by 2012 it was performing $1 million days regularly. It had already begun to suffer from slow performance and system outages. Running an incredible amount of revenue through accounting software designed for small businesses and maintaining this data manually with spreadsheets was not an ideal infrastructure for the growing company.

The company wanted to find an infrastructure with more scalable, internally-managed systems to run its dynamic business but still maintain its small-company feel. The decision was made to run one global instance of SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management, hosted by a managed services provider at an off-site data center. The overall project plan included implementations (led by Deloitte) of additional SAP solutions such as SAP Fiori, SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting, SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer, SAP Hybris Product Content Management, SAP Hybris Commerce, and SAP Hybris Marketing. The transformation project kicked off in June 2015 and is scheduled to be completed by the close of 2020.

So far, the SAP software has been rolled out to around 200 users in the first two waves. By the time wave three is complete, that number will climb toward 1,000 — and the global rollout will reach close to 2,000 users.

• The operations users who have gone live to date have realized better visibility into inventory as well as an improved ability to manage the supply chain. Previously, manual processes for inventory management and planning — such as managing receipts, shipments, and material request transactions — were simple and broad. More accurate and detailed planning around how materials data is managed is helping drive better procurement workflows and decisions.
• Costing on products can now be done with more granularity than before as the company now has access to cost elements in the material master
• More robust finance processes have improved budgeting, cost and cash management, and financial reporting.
• Enhanced HR processes, such as employee and manager self-service capabilities, have improved access to HR data.
• dōTERRA has consolidated more than 30% of its websites and has better control of the content.
• Employees are pleased with the new look SAP Fiori brings and are enjoying the simplicity of their personalized screens.
• The business had its first glimpse at the power of SAP S/4HANA, which has spurred ideas for more advanced analytics, that are currently in the works.