RUNNING HEAD: SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

Submission# 06

Amna Nadeem
Asad Ali Khan
Chandni Azher
Fatima Tanveer
Sufiyan Yousaf

Submitted to: Feryal Khan

Services Marketing
23rd May, 2016

Dabbawala
Summary and analysis:
This article is about the Mumbais Models of Service Excellence. In this article, it mainly
talks about the extraordinary services of dabbawalas that is being provided even at the times
when Mumbai was battered by heavy monsoon rains and the water was everywhere, due to
that people were stuck everywhere.
But at that time it was the dabbawalas, who deliver meals prepared in customers homes to
their offices and then return the empty dabbas (metal lunch-boxes) the same day. Dabbawalas
were back on the job after the first day of flooding. There are thousands of dabbawalas
workers who are known for their service record. They make huge amount of transactions
every day, every week and every year, after all the mistakes are very rare. It is very
interesting that the dabbawalas, semiliterate workers who largely manage themselves, have
achieved that level of performance at very low cost, in an eco-friendly way, without the use
of any IT system or even cell phones.
The dabbawalas success is proof that with the right system in place, ordinary workers can
achieve extraordinary results. After hearing about the dabbawalas, it is clear that they have an
overall system whose basic pillars are organizations, management, process and culture. These
all factors are perfectly aligned and mutually reinforcing. The dabbawalas pillars contributes
to a system that is focused on achieving one simple goal: on-time delivery.
Organization
A key to the dabbawalas operations is the Mumbai Suburban Railway, one of the most
extensive, complex, and heavily used urban commuter lines in the world. Dabbawalas use
bicycles and handcarts to deliver the dabba by travelling short distances between the stations
and customers homes and offices. Office workers prefer home cooked food so to fulfil this
dabbawalas picks up the dabba from customers home and takes it to the nearest station,
where it is sorted and put onto a wooden crane according to its destination. Then it is taken by
the train to the station closest to its destination. There it is sorted again and delivered to the
right office before lunchtime and in the afternoon dabba is returned back to the customers
home. Dabbawalas have organized themselves into 200 units of about 25 people each to work
efficiently. These groups have local autonomy and flat organizations structure due to that they
are to provide low cost delivery service. Then there is a regulatory mechanism in which the
daily schedule determines when certain tasks need to be done and the amount of time allowed
for each. In case if worker got late in his delivery then alternative arrangements are made for
delivering the dabba.
Management
The dabbawalas essentially manage themselves with respect to hiring, logistics, customer
acquisition and retention, and conflict resolution. Each dabbawala is an entrepreneur who is
responsible for negotiating prices with his own customers. However, governing committees
set guidelines for prices, which take into account factors such as the distance between a
customers residence and office and the distance between that office and the closest railway
station. When someone wants to join a local dabbawala group, the group will assess whether

theres enough demand to add another person. Workers with more than 10 years of experience
serve as supervisors, or muqaddams. Every group has one or more muqaddams, who
supervise the coding, sorting, and loading and unloading of dabbas and are responsible for
resolving disputes, overseeing collections, and troubleshooting. They also pick up and deliver
dabbas themselves.
Process
It comprises how the way information is managed, the use of built-in buffers, and a strict
adherence to standards. Simple codes, the first is a large, bold number in the centre, which
indicates the neighbourhood where the dabba must be delivered. The second is a group of
characters on the edge of the lid: a number for the dabbawala who will make the delivery, an
alphabetical code (two or three letters) for the office building, and a number indicating the
floor. The third, a combination of colour and shape, and in some instances, a motif, indicates
the station of origin. Buffer capacity, it talks about that the allocated time of picking up the
dabba is very less so if there is any delay for that there are 2-3 extra workers who fill in
wherever they are needed, and all members are cross trained in different activities: collecting,
sorting, transporting, finance, and customer relations. If the dabba is of different size, then
there will be an additional fee for that. The dabbaswalas strictly observe certain rules and
customers are also expected to abide by the process.
Culture