Dabbawallahs of Mumbai A dabbawallah is a courier who picks up a lunch-full dabba from a client s home in the morning and retrieves

the empty dabba after the consumption of lunch and returns it to the client s home in the evening. This practice of dabbawallahs begun in Mumbai in 1980. Working independently and I small groups fordecades, the dabbawallahs had united in 1954 to put tighter a rudimentary cooperative. This was officially registered in 1956 as Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers charity Trust. This service of supply of tiffen box was necessitated by the advantages of healty and expensive food. The number of dabbawallahs and the numbers of customers increased to 5142 to 175040 respectively in 2003 from 58 and 1445 in1990.together, they deliver,175000 lunches daily by covering approximitaly 75km through suburban railway network of Mumbai. This business generated about rs. 380 million per annum. Despite the sheer number of daily deliveries, the failure rate reported by the media numdered one in two months, or one in every15 million deliveries. Their distribution network was characterized by a combination of baton relay system and hub and spokes system . Under this, dabbas were handed off between them at various points and sorting was done at specific railway locations from where individual spokes branched out for distribution. The success of the delivery process was due to their coding system. Five codes are painted on the top of each dabba in distinct group colours. They stand for residential location, for usage of dabbawallahs at destinations location, for dabbawallahs at the residential and destination railway stations. Sri Raghunath Medge, president of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust, says the dabbawallah is a Mumbai institution that has survived for over a century now. It will survive for the next century and beyond . We will continue to be there because no one can provide the kind of error-free-service that we provide Questions 1) According to you, what was responsible for their successful service? 2) Which concepts of services marketing are relevant for this case and why? 3) Can you identify any such service in which service is delivered by common people without any background of concepts? Jan/Feb-2005