The Dabbawala Mumbai

Q1) How does the dabbawala organization achieve its high service performance? What is its secret
for success?
Ans)
The Dabbawalas have a workforce of 5,000 individuals and they deliver around 130,000 lunches per
day to offices throughout Mumbai.

They achieve high service performance due to the following factors:

1. Organization Structure
They are a flat structure that help in making quick decisions. This improves their reaction
time to many uncertainties during their distribution. As Dabbawalas are both partners and
owners they have the sense of responsibility and accountability towards their work.
2. Segmentation into Groups
The complete workforce of Dabbawalas work based on the assigned area groups. They
are well aware of the areas they deliver to because they visit daily. They have autonomy
within groups which gives them flexibility and possibility to develop customer relations.
3. Job Expertise/Job Standardization
Many Dabbawalas continue working for decades and decades together. This helps them
to develop expertise in the things they do. As the work is standardised, it helps to improve
their efficiency.
4. Trust
Dabbawalas have been functioning for the last 120 years and have defaulted very less. This
has developed a sense of trust within the customers which in turn boosts the functioning
of dabbawalas.
5. Coding
Coding on the dabbas is an integral part of the delivery process of Dabbawalas. The codes
are designed as per the groups that serve the particular areas. These codes help to increase
the pace of the segregation of dabbas at the main railway stations.

6. Means of Transportation
Dabbawalas are dependent on smaller vehicles such as cycles and carts for local delivery
and on trains for long distances. The city is extensively connected with railway network
allowing them to work at lower cost and reasonable delivery speed. This network allows
them run on hub and spoke model.

The success of Dabbawalas can be attributed to their shear effort and dedication they put into their
work. This also comes from community belongingness. Their attitude of treating the complete
delivery process with a sense of urgency and not casually. They don’t dwell into vehemently
expanding their business but to work on their expertise of delivery and make living out of it.

Q2) Why do world-class companies like FedEx study the dabbawala system? What do they expect to
learn?
Ans)
World-class companies like FedEx study the Dabbawalla system for the following reasons:
• Extremely low/negligible error rate – Barely any mistake is ever made by them. Mumbai
Dabbawalla has been awarded the Six Sigma for their low error rate.
• Low technological use yet high operational efficiency – they don’t employ any other
technology apart from a website where people place their orders
• Highly integrated supply chain – they focus on the efficient working of whole supply chain
system and its flow as much as they focus on and understand its individual parts. Each
‘dabba’ in fact changes 60-70 hands before it reaches its destination
• Focus on value delivery to customers – they are aware of how important the service is to
its customers and the implications of not fulfilling it efficiently, thus putting all their efforts
into fulfilling the needs and delivering value to the customers.

Q3) A consultant wants to move the dabbawala system into the twenty-first century and proposes
several changes. How should Raghunath Medge respond?
(a) Stop the consultant immediately.
(b) Make changes to the system. Please list specific examples of what you would change.
Ans)
Changes which can be incorporated into the system are
Online payment option
• As working sector in India is growing at a rapid phase, most of the women are no longer held
up in looking after the home chores and kids. Men and women are equally opportunistic to
earn and better their livelihood which makes the interaction with the dabbawala’s minimum,
so it will be very useful to have an online payment gateway which will ease up the payments
of the bills.
• India is moving towards digital economy so digitalizing the payment system will make the
overall process easy and seamless
• Efficiency in the accounting of payments can be improved in this process
CRM system and Educated people to handle the system
• Timely feedback, suggestions, grievances of customers can be handled which will increase the
overall customer satisfaction
 • Team of skilled people will handle the CRM system and will report to the operational
committee on the insights of the data and suggest areas of improvement
Training dabbawala’s in English language
• As most of the clientele are from working class who will be from different parts of India, it
will be easy to communicate with the customers(Non Hindi, Non Marathi) if dabbawala’s are
taught english which in turn will increase the efficiency and customer satisfaction
Upgradation of website to be more interactive
• Customers can place orders and book deliveries using the website and also an application can
be developed for ease of the customer usage