Vita Coco delivers fresh coconut water to the world with help from Dropbox for Business

Vita Coco is an all-natural, electrolyte-rich coconut water that is currently sold in 13 countries throughout the world. By picking, cracking, and packing coconuts directly at the source, Vita Coco maintains a high level of quality and leads the coconut water category, commanding 60 percent of the market share.

Taking a crack at it

As part of its commitment to providing the freshest product possible, Vita Coco maintains a strict protocol, packing its coconut water within 72 hours of the fruit being picked. Though the company's staff has grown from just under two dozen employees five years ago to 250 people worldwide now, it still strives to run a lean, highly efficient operation. Every individual on staff has a very specific function in the pick-pack-sell process, and every piece of technology the company uses must work to support this. To keep employees connected, the company tried everything from network drives to portable hard drives to a file sharing application. But according to Director of Brand Marketing Brian Olney, "A lot of employees didn't use those tools because they didn't really fit into workflows properly." It didn't take long for Vita Coco employees to begin searching for reliable alternatives — using Dropbox to share files with each other. In order to empower staff members with the kind of technology they wanted, and still retain control over content like brand strategies and future innovations, Vita Coco decided to roll out Dropbox for Business and set up different levels of access for different teams across the company.

Keeping production rolling across the globe

Production of Vita Coco coconut water involves an intricate balance of collaboration among people around the globe. The company's headquarter offices are in New York, London, and Singapore, with additional support in Japan, South Korea, France, and the U.S., but its coconuts are sourced from locations such as Brazil and Indonesia. To keep operations running smoothly and speedily across time zones, Vita Coco relies on Dropbox for Business. Dropbox keeps everyone on the same page during key production steps, such as the development of product packaging. Because the company's coconuts come from different beaches, nutritional information varies and must be customized on each region's label. As designers adjust label data, they use Dropbox links to share PDFs for approval. Marketing and production teams review the packaging designs, making any necessary changes, and then the files are sent to third-party manufacturing partners in Germany or Singapore — again, via Dropbox. As Olney explains, "We have hundreds of variations of packaging. The stakes are really big for us, and we have complete and utter trust in Dropbox for Business."

Smooth selling

When it comes time to get Vita Coco into the hands of more retailers, Dropbox for Business also plays an important role. Company sales reps used to rely on printed documents and notebooks to relay and collect information from potential distributors. Now with Dropbox, reps can work faster and smarter, using iPads to retrieve and present product details on the fly. "Dropbox for Business helps us push information to our sales guys quickly and efficiently," Olney adds. "They can immediately convey what something looks like, why a store should buy it, and how it will increase sales." Instant access to marketing materials is a key piece of this. "We use Dropbox for Business as a system for storing all our creative — the layered artwork, the actual files our design team is working on, the handling of proofs," says Olney. "When we have the latest images of Kourtney Kardashian drinking Vita Coco, now our sales reps can grab them from Dropbox and use them in the field."