Presentation by Dr. Babu P George @ SMA 2013

1. Sustainable Supply Chains: An
‘Updated’ Case Study of
Dabbawallahs of Mumbai
Dabbawallah = a box person, the
lunch delivery man
Babu P George, PhD
© No right reserved!

3. "I immediately asked myself: how an
organization with so few resources,
technology and management know-how
could achieve such high-delivery
performance? When I came back to Boston,
I researched the organization and found
more questions than answers.“ - Stefan
Thomke, Professor, Harvard Business
School
“200K food containers
moving from homes to
offices and schools
everyday, within the span
of 4 hours, in one of the
most crowded cities in the
world, using the
technology of trust” - Sajal
Adhav, a dhabbawallah.
"We don’t understand Six Sigma. We are a
bunch of illiterates. But we do know our prime
responsibility – customer satisfaction. And to
achieve that, we can put in hard work like no
one else"
- Raghunath Medge
President, Nutan Tiffin
Box Suppliers Association

4. Framework for Analysis
We will examine performance along four categories of
sustainability (based on MindClick’s HSP Index):
• How the dabbawala service is better for the customer
• How the dabbawala service is better for the community
• How the dabbawala service is better for the environment
• How the dabbawala service is better for the service
provider

5. Commercial Hospitality

6. Brief History of a Food Supply Chain
•
Originated in the late colonial times
– Indian employees working for the British did not like the food being served in the workplace
•
Organized as a cooperative in late 19th century
– Distributed, flat, network organizational structure
•
•
Currently, around 5000 members/employees
In the three layered structure, ALL employees are paid equally
–
•
•
•
Migrants coming mostly from the villages surrounding Mumbai
Community referral based staff recruitment
Use of time-tested hub-n-spoke concept
•
•
•
Permits individualized customer care, collaborative planning and implementation
Started with the objective of giving a livelihood for migrant workers
•
•
•
Discipleship NOT followership
Each spoke is managed autonomously by a team of 20-25
dabbawallahs, each serving around 30 customers per day, under the leadership of a ‘mukadam’
(supervisor).
Over the time, this ‘hospitality network’ evolved into a flawless system with six
sigma performance rating.
The unique situation of circular distribution (“zero order closed loop supply
chain”?): Supplier=Supplied

7. Built-in Sustainability
•
Organic development of business
– NOT in response to regulatory pressure nor to ‘capitalize upon’ the green wave of consumer
demand
– NOT introduced as a means for competitive advantage
– No imported theories or practices
–
•
Even the dabba coding system is self-evolved/evolving
Coexistence with community aspirations
– Indian culture gives a lot of importance to ‘homemade food’
– Co-evolution with society; nevertheless, act as a force against undesirable developments
(such as fast food culture).
– Resonates with the voices of nature and society
•
No pen, paper, or electronic memory documentation
– All depends upon a few characters of ‘code’ marked on dabbas
•
Resilience-homeostasis keep tested: community does not disown the network
even when they were allured by commercially minded similar service providers.
– Some employers are known to give their staff incentives if they use dabbawala services
rather than go out to have lunch in the restaurants.
•
May be, love delivered from home make them efficient and effective at work?

8. Sustainability is a ‘Process in the
Making’
•
Introduction of dabbas (food boxes) made of more eco-friendly materials
– Boxes made of wood rather than steel/aluminum, better sealing to avoid contamination in the
transportation phase, no to plastic
•
In exceptional cases, deliver restaurant-cooked food to work places and even to
homes
– While resisting the temptation to exploit an increasing opportunity to do the same
•
•
•
•
•
•
Rather encourages home-cooked food from trusted neighborhood homes (livelihood for more
families!)
Avoid using motorized / private transportation for shipping
Avoid using GPS routing, barcodes, or RFIDs (the illiterate workforce could not
have managed them + the initial investment requirements)
Delivery of organic raw materials for food preparation to homes, often directly
from the farmers (inside the otherwise empty dabbas) in the evenings –
‘sustainable’ reverse logistics with integration to ‘sustainable’ second order supply
chains.
Collect leftovers in the dabbas to deliver to farmers who use them as manure
Collect leftovers from hotels and event locations and deliver to the orphanages
and old age homes

9. Some Recent Adaptations
•
Engage in complementary and supplementary pro-community activities
– Circulate community support messages (E.g.: About medical camps, volunteering and
employment opportunities, etc)
– Organize community activism (E.g.: Mobilization of people against the corrupt; against unsafe
garbage dumping; tree planting; etc).
– Household waste disposal support; also, support with cloth washing (dhobi).
– Making and mending relationships: (E.g.: Match-making).
– early warning to law enforcement about troubles in an area.
•
•
Induction of women / LGBT / minority groups into the member network
Part-time continuing educational opportunities for society members
– Training in computer operations, food service, personal grooming, English language, etc.
•
•
•
Healthcare and retirement planning for the members
Help start, nurture, and certify dabbawalla networks in other cities
Knowledge exchange with colleges and b-schools on dabbawallah network building
in particular and social entrepreneurship in general
These add-on activities make an 11am-2pm job to a full day job for the network
members

10. Sustainable Competitive Advantage:
What the Dabbawalas Think
• Dabbawalas epitomize the ‘triumph of human
will’ that is fuelled by the power of certain living
philosophies (summary of a focus group
interview):
• Work is worship
– delivering food is a way to serve God
– I am delivering love, packaged in food
– Me skipping lunch will go in vain if a single one of my customers
goes without lunch
• See the whole through the part
– If I fail, all other dabbawalas will fail
– I will pass only if all other dabbawalas pass the test everyday
– Process is the outcome
• Trust broken once is broken for ever
• Simplicity is not the best solution, but it always work

11. In the light of Theory
• First mover advantage associated with building a huge network
– Network economics: benefit for each user increases with the size of
the network
– There is no room for a parallel network
• The algorithm of success lies latently in the web of relationships
– Core competence cannot easily be decoded, transferred, or replicated
• Culture of competitiveness: Superior match between internal
resources and external opportunities, obtained through shared
understanding between ‘the servant and the served’
– The dabbawalas have no strategy but an implicit sense of shared
purpose that directs their collective action

12. Days Ahead:---?
•
Opening up of in-house canteens in factories, business offices, and schools
–
•
Competition for limited space on trains
–
•
Nuclear families, trendiness to eat out, frugality no longer a virtue, spouse accepting full time employment
Businesses moving to satellite towns around Mumbai which are not well connected by suburban
trains
–
•
Mumbai is a ‘victim of its own success’
Changing worldviews and life-styles of the young generation
–
•
Also the indianization of menus of multinational fast-food chains
Also, temporary offices, telecommuting
True, three generations of dabbawalas made this business model work. But,
–
Will next generation be interested to accept this as a career option?
•
•
•
•
Need for additional revenue streams to survive
–
–
–
–
–
–
•
Project with tech-savvy young employees on an ‘express delivery system’ using electronic distribution technologies
E-commerce in food delivery (web-based booking, SMS based ordering)
Experimentation with ‘table services’ by trade-school trained dabbawalas
Carry commercials and samples inside dabbas
Mail delivery
Paint dabbas with advertisements
Product endorsements
Dabbawala owned restaurants with food take-out outlet
Will reputation be negatively affected; will the key strength be diluted???
Business model streamlining is a felt need
–
–
–
Lot of unsought (sometimes unwanted) help comes from academic researchers and gurus.
Unfortunately, not much of their jargon makes sense for the illiterate tribe of street-smart dabbawalas
Still, with the appointment of a few professionally trained administrators, dabbawalas are trying to keep pace
with the times.

13. Sources
•
•
•
•
First hand experiences
Personal interviews
Media reports
www.mydabbawala.com
“Dhabbawalas may be poor people, but each of them
live by a rich set of values; we wouldn’t have let them
into our homes if it weren’t.” – A Mumbaiite housewife