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Mumbai’s Models of Service Excellence

• Stefan Thomke

What the city’s dabbawalas can teach your company about quality

Reprint: R1211K

Think you need exceptional employees, advanced IT, or rigid controls to build a high-performance organization? The dabbawalas of Mumbai prove otherwise. Six days a week, these 5,000 self-managed, semi-literate workers deliver upwards of 130,000 lunches from customers’ homes to their offices with astonishing precision—negotiating the crowded city by train, bicycle, and handcart, without the aid of any technology or even cell phones. The 100-year-old service is legendary for its reliability: Despite monsoons, floods, riots, and terrorist attacks, mistakes by the dabbawalas are extremely rare.

Thomke, an HBS professor, studied the dabbawalas to find the keys to their success. He uncovered a unique system with four pillars: organization, management, process, and culture. A flat structure, consisting of autonomous units of 25 people each, is well suited to providing low-cost service. The tight schedule of the train lines over which meals are ferried regulates everyone’s work. Buffer capacity is built in to address extremely thin margins of error; each unit has extra workers who fill in wherever they are needed, and members are cross-trained in all activities. Variations that might derail the works are discouraged; the lunchboxes used, for instance, are all a standard size. A simple coding system helps workers quickly sort lunches and get them where they need to go. And democratic decision making and deep emotional bonds among workers promote a high degree of cooperation.

The dabbawalas show that with the right system, even ordinary workers can achieve the extraordinary.

In July 2005, Mumbai was battered by unusually heavy monsoon rains. In just 12 hours, more than 25 inches deluged India’s business capital. That, combined with record high tides, wreaked widespread havoc, bringing the city to a virtual standstill. As the water rose waist-high in many areas, people found themselves stranded at railway stations, in trains, and on roads and sidewalks.

• Stefan Thomke is the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is a leading authority on the management of business experimentation and innovation and has worked with many global companies on product, process, and technology development. He is the author of Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments (HBR Press, 2020).

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• October 2012 (Revised September 2013)
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• HBS Case Collection

The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time

• Format: Print
• | Language: English
• | Pages: 13

About The Author

Stefan H. Thomke

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• The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time  By: Stefan H. Thomke

Inside the Case: The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time

Featuring: Stefan Thomke, Mona Sinha

The Inside the Case: The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time video offers behind-the-scenes insights on teaching the case from coauthor Stefan Thomke. He discusses the case's learning objectives, provides introductory and discussion questions that have worked well for him, offers suggestions for teaching the case online, and shares memorable moments of teaching this case with students.

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How Harvard professors are mining India for management lessons

How Harvard professors are mining India for lessons in management

By Nikhil Menon, ET Bureau From the logistics of Dabbawalas to the redevelopment of Dharavi, Harvard professors are mining the country for lessons in management. The sight turned quite a few heads on Mumbai's suburban railway network. Long used to ignoring everything in their antlike frenzy, commuters who saw a dapper-looking foreigner gingerly alighting from a local train in the company of a bunch of dabbawalas couldn’t help but pause for a while. But if they were puzzled, Stefan H Thomke, William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS), was astonished-and getting more so by the second. A regular visitor to India for a quarter of a century, Thomke had first read about the dabbawalas in a magazine in his hotel room. He says, "I immediately asked myself: how could an organisation with so few resources, technology and management knowhow achieve such high-delivery performance? When I came back to Boston, I researched the organisation and found more questions than answers." In Pic: Professor John Macomber, co-author of the case study on Dharavi, on a Mumbai street.

'The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time'

In February 2010, HBS published his observations in the form of a case study, entitled 'The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time'. One of the most authoritative analyses of the dabbawala community and the environment they operate in, the case study has since been debated and discussed extensively in classrooms as well as in Harvard's management development programmes . "It seemed like a fascinating and unusual setting that is unique to India but with potentially powerful lessons for the world," says Thomke. "People with average skills and education can do extraordinary things. Perhaps there is a bigger lesson here. India has many people, but are all of them being used to their full potential?" Thomke isn't the first Harvard professor to evince an interest in the great Indian growth story. From Jamnalal Bajaj and Mahatma Gandhi to Infosys and the Indian railways to SBI, India teems with countless examples of resourcefulness and stories of ingenuity in the face of serious challenges. For an academic, particularly , from one of the world's bestknown business schools, India provides a virtual goldmine of case studies. In Pic: A worker polishes a kitchen cooking stove at a small-scale stove making factory at Dharavi, one of the world's largest shantytowns, in Mumbai, India on Friday, June 10, 2011. (Image: AP)

Setting of India Research Center was a significant step by Harvard

Harvard's India connection has been growing steadily over the years. In recent times, the School has begun running full-fledged management development programmes (MDPs) in India for future leaders. Professors from top Indian B-schools are also becoming regulars at Harvard's Global Colloquium on Participant-Centered Learning, held in Boston. But arguably one of the most significant steps taken to boost this mutual relationship was the establishment of an India Research Center (IRC) in 2006. The Center, one of seven worldwide , is designed to run like an Embassy , through which Harvard will 'share the best of Harvard with India and vice versa'. One of the Center's main objectives is to support and guide members of Harvard's faculty who routinely visit India on research projects that culminate in case studies. These case studies, says HBS Dean Nitin Nohria, enable the school to share Indian knowledge with the rest of the world. "We know that we could never possibly scale to meet the growing demand for what we do and we don't aspire to take the place of business schools in India or elsewhere ," he says. In Pic: A boy carries his two-year-old brother through a flooded pathway in a Mumbai slum on June 6, 2011. (Image: REUTERS)

Most Harvard case studies from South Asia are India-centric

"So we have chosen instead to go where the knowledge is, to study it first-hand and then share it with the world through our publishing and teaching. Our research centers in various parts of the world, including India , help us to build relationships with business leaders in those regions to facilitate the writing of cases and other research." According to Anjali Raina, executive director of the IRC, as many as 80 of the 120-plus recently documented Harvard case studies from South Asia, are India-centric . "There is a tremendous amount of knowledge lying across the three spheres of business, society and government. HBS researchers are actively studying all three individually, as well as cases that lie within the interaction of multiple spheres," she says. One such example is Dharavi, Asia's largest slum and home to an indigenous economy all its own. The redevelopment of Dharavi is fraught with politicial, social and financial repercussions. Yet, it is a necessity for a growing economy like India to provide a better quality of life to Dharavi's residents. In Pic: High rise residential buildings are seen behind a slum in Mumbai on July 20, 2010. (Image: REUTERS)

Dharavi is a very complex place

Lakshmi Iyer, Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard's Business, Government and the International Economy Unit, co-authored a study along with Professor John Macomber and Namrata Arora, entitled 'Dharavi : Developing Asia's Largest Slum'. Written in the year that ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ swept the Oscars, the case uses imagery and even the occasional quote from the movie. It tracks a real estate developer's journey, negotiating the various risks and questions that inevitably arise during redevelopment. Add to that the fact that Dharavi is a very complex place with different communities that have strong personal views on redevelopment and it becomes a perfect candidate for a case study for the world's brightest minds. Macomber has used the case in three different courses - finance, infrastructure , sustainable cities - and it's been a hit every time, provoking extensive discussion . "The case is about entrepreneurship and large-scale investment. It deals with finance, risk management, sensitivity analysis, supply chains, organisational behaviour and all the other things you learn in business school," he says. In Pic: In this photo taken December 18, 2009, a boy stands amid plastic waste from a plastic bottle recycling plant at a slum area in Mumbai, India. (Image: AP)

Growth of middle class draws an academician's interest

Lakshmi Iyer says there are two principal reasons for India being of major interest from an academician's standpoint: one, the high economic growth rates recorded over the past two decades and the growth of a significant middle class and two, the opening up of the economy, which means that more and more global firms have a presence in India now. "For both these reasons, it is important for our students and MDP participants to understand how business works in India," she adds. If Dharavi and Slumdog Millionaire generated widespread interest in India's growth, the terror attacks of November 2008 were a grim reminder of its vulnerability. The Taj Mahal hotel at Apollo Bunder in Mumbai has long been one of the city's most iconic symbols for Indians and foreigners alike. But on 26th November 2008, it was thrust into the middle of India's worst terrorist attack, as armed terrorists forced their way inside, gunning down scores of innocents and engaging security forces for over two days. In Pic: In this October 19, 2010 photo, a boy flies a kite in a shanty town in Mumbai, India.(Image: AP)

Employees at the Taj instinctively did a right thing during Mumbai attacks

The events that followed are known to most people. What could have been a human and public relations catastrophe became a story of resilience and courage that will be retold many times over. It also became a Harvard case study. Rohit Deshpande, Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing and Faculty Chair, Global Colloquium for Participant-Centered Learning, calls the Taj incident 'the most important example of customercentric leadership from below I have ever seen' . He says employees at the Taj individually, and without prior training in anti-terrorism measures, instinctively 'did the right thing.' "The telephone operators stayed on the job despite the end of their shifts and being told to go home. Instead, they instructed guests to turn off room lights, take key cards out of room doors, lock rooms, turn off lights, and not use their mobiles. The kitchen staff formed a human chain to protect guests from bullets and led them down secret kitchen passages and out to safety," says Deshpande.

The case explored factors for a customer-centric organisation

Apart from telling the story of employee bravery and initiative, the case also explored the factors that go into building a customer-centric organisation, starting with recruiting, training, and rewarding employees and the role of corporate culture (in this case not only of Taj Hotels but of the Tata Group) and what it takes to rebuild a distinguished, centuryold flagship brand. And rebuild, the group did. Today , heads of state and business leaders heading to Mumbai want to stay at the Taj, a symbol of resistance against terror. Interestingly, the Taj terror case study was not planned, and Deshpande was originally planning to do a study on the hotel's changing brand architecture , which was also released in September 2010. Raina of IRC says that over the years, the subjects being chosen for research by HBS researchers have seen a gradual shift from FMCG and marketing to other subjects. "These include sustainability , finance, urbanisation , sustainability , good governance and HR," she explains.

Accessibility of oranised data is research-related challenge

The richness of data available in the country has tremendously fascinated academicians and Indophiles alike. However, Raina admits that this data is not always readily accessible. "The data's there, but it needs to be leveraged better," she says, "Sometimes you don't know who the right contact person is, and how to contact him or her. Then the data may not be available in the right format, or may not be readily accessible or organised. This is one of the research-related challenges." But Thomke was never fazed by these challenges, since all along he had been looking for interesting case studies that were unique to India and, at the same time, had 'broad global appeal' . These included the first case, about the dabbawalas of Mumbai, and a second one titled 'Innovation at Mahindra & Mahindra' , which is about the role of maverick innovators in organisations and the tension between structured and informal management processes.

India's big challenge is to supplement world-class education

The case speaks about Mahindra & Mahindra's efforts to build a revolutionary new tractor, which encounters numerous problems and setbacks. Thomke recalls encountering employees who were 'hungry for knowledge' and had some pretty impressive suggestions. But despite this, he adds that India's next big challenge is to supplement the world-class education being offered at its premier institutions with a focus on training the 'other 99% of the population' , particularly in vocational skills so as to maximise India's human capital advantage. His observations are being echoed in India's corridors of power. However, one thing seems certain: whatever India does, it will be in its own unique way. And the world will be watching and taking notes.

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The dabbawala system: on-time delivery, every time case study analysis & solution, harvard business case studies solutions - assignment help.

The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time is a Harvard Business (HBR) Case Study on Technology & Operations , Fern Fort University provides HBR case study assignment help for just $11. Our case solution is based on Case Study Method expertise & our global insights.

Technology & Operations Case Study | Authors :: Stefan Thomke, Mona Sinha

Case study description.

To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color.Describes the Mumbai-based Dabbawala organization, which achieves very high service performance (6 Sigma equivalent or better) with a low-cost and very simple operating system. The case explores all aspects of their system (mission, information management, material flows, human resource system, processes, etc.) and the challenges that the Dabbawala organization faces in a rapidly changing environment. An outside consultant proposes the introduction of new technologies and management systems, while the leading logistics companies (e.g., FedEx) come to Mumbai to learn about the Dabbawala system.

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Case Study of Popular Mumbai Dabbawala System- 2023

Gateway of India, Haji Ali, Hotel Taj, Colaba Market, Fashion Street , and many more. Most of you must have guessed the city we are discussing.

Yes, you guessed it right.

It’s Mumbai.

But other than these, there is something else that makes Mumbai famous. It’s “Dabbawala.”

We have heard people saying that Mumbai is a city that does not stop. But similarly, an army of men in the same town does not get tired or stop. Who are they?

They are Mumbai Dabbawalas, also known as Dabbawalas.

If you visit Mumbai, you are bound to notice the Mumbai Dabbawalas. You may not realize this, but the Mumbai Dabbawala is an essential part of the life of Mumbai.

Dabbawalas deliver around 2,00,000 meals daily and have been doing this for 130 years. Within 4 hours, they provide home-cooked meals to offices daily and do all this without using any technology.

Let us look at the Mumbai Dabbawala case study that will help you understand Dabbawala better.

The Invention of Mumbai Dabbawala

Founded in 1890, Mumbai Dabbawalas are the men dressed in traditional white outfits with Gandhi caps delivering home-cooked food to Mumbaikar from home to office daily.

They are a strong army of nearly 5,000 people who ensure that 2,00,000 people get their lunch on time at their offices.

Their work is so efficient that many famous personalities like Richard Bradstone and Prince Charles have visited them.

Moreover, these men in white have given lectures at different business schools. Therefore, they are six sigma compatible.

The service was born out of sheer need.

With so many people belonging to different communities reaching the city of dreams and no fast-food culture being that popular back then, there was a shortage of an adequate food delivery system.

While there was a rising demand, there was a supply of illiterate workers who had traveled to the city after their agriculture business failed to ensure sustenance at home.

With no education to work as clerks in the homes of Britishers but with enough energy to embark on any hard work, the idea of delivering home-cooked food was born.

Thus was the launch of the “Dabba Delivery System” in Mumbai.

How did the Mumbai Dabbawala Emerge?

Nearly 125 years ago, a Parsi banker working in Fort Branch wanted to have home-cooked food in his office. So he appointed a young man who belonged from Gurgaon to get his lunch from his home every afternoon.

It is how the job of 1st Dabbawala emerged.

The Mumbai dabbawalla price was nearly two annas at that time.

Soon, the business started picking up and gaining popularity because of the visionary work of Mahadeo Havaji Bacche, who considered this a golden opportunity and decided to grow it as a business.

What makes Dabbawala exceptional?

The dabbawalas have a fantastic service record. Each day they deliver more than 1,30,000 lunchboxes all over Mumbai, the fourth most populous city in the world.

It means nearly 2,60,000 transactions being done in almost 6 hours every day, six days a week, and 52 weeks a year, without a single mistake.

Surprisingly, the dabbawalas have achieved that level of performance at a low cost, eco-friendly manner, without using any digital or IT platform or even mobile phones.

A study conducted by the Harvard Business School rated it “Six Sigma,” which means that the dabbawalas made less than 3.4 errors per million transactions.

With almost 2,00,000 deliveries six days a week, less than 212 missing or delayed Dabbas in a year.

You must be thinking, how can a poorly educated, decentralized team perform amazingly without errors in such a challenging environment?

The answer is a lesson for those companies who want to grow their business in the market.

The way the Mumbai tiffin wala works is an inspiration for all the organizations that want to grow. Companies that cannot afford to appoint stars depend on ordinary people for support.

The success of dabbawalas proves that with the right system and hardworking workers, we can achieve extraordinary results in no time.

Mumbai Dabbawalas employs around 5,000 people, many of whom have had little education or reading knowledge, but how do they keep the orders intact. First, let’s see how Mumbai Dabbawalas operate.

How do Mumbai Dabbawalas work?

The Dabbawalas run their food delivery service on four fundamental pillars. These are the organization, management process, and culture.

All these four pillars are correctly aligned and mutually supporting. It is uncommon to see such coordination in the corporate world.

The Mumbai Suburban Railway, one of the most complex, vast, and mainly used urban commuter lines worldwide, plays a vital role in the Dabbawalas’ operations.

Its basic layout requires delivery people with cycles and handcarts to travel between the railway stations and customers’ offices and homes.

Every day, a Dabba reaches its destination after passing through several hands. In the morning, a dabbawalla picks it up from the customer’s home and goes to the nearest railway station. Then, it is sorted and put on a wooden carte as per its destination.

Once it reaches the nearest station, it is sorted and assigned to another dabbawalla, who delivers it to the office before lunchtime. Once lunchtime is over, the process runs the other way around, and the Dabba reaches the customer’s home.

They use a trick to avoid confusion about which Dabba (the Indian Lunchbox) belongs to. They follow a “coding system.” The lids of the dabbas are labeled with numbers, letters, and symbols indicating where they came and where they should be delivered.

The Mumbai Dabbawalas are famous for their punctuality. Their mission statement since the day they started operation has been “Always deliver on time.”

A supervisory mechanism

The railway system sets the rhythm and pace of delivery. The regular schedule determines the time to complete a task and the time allotted.

Dabbawalas have just 40 seconds to load the crates of Dabbas on a train at essential stations and just 20 seconds at interval stops.

The Dabbawalas manage themselves concerning logistics, hiring, retention, and customer acquisition.

First, however, governing committees fix guidelines for costs, considering factors like the distance between a customer’s house and office and the distance between the office and the nearest railway station.

It helps them operate the service efficiently and keep charges low and the quality high.

Every Dabbawala is an entrepreneur responsible for negotiating prices with his clients. As Dabbawalas own their relationships with clients and tend to work in a similar location for several years, those relationships are usually trustworthy and long-term.

For the Dabbawalas, having the proper procedure signifies much more than just implementing effective workflows. It also involves everything in the organization, including how information is collected, using built-in buffers, and strictly following the standards.

SWOT Analysis

• Teamwork, honesty, and discipline
• Ownership, time management
• Low cost, customer satisfaction
• A service commitment, process consistency
• It depends on Mumbai’s local train service
• Restricted access to education limits

Opportunities

• Have a tie-up with caterers to serve varieties of food
• Expanding to other cities
• Flexible timing
• During high alerts in the city, Dabbawalas face a lot of issues

Awards & Recognition

• Shri. Varkari Prabhodhan Mahasmati Dindi Sohala
• Invitation from CII for conference arranged in Bangalore
• Documentaries made by UTV, BBC, ZEE TV, and MTV
• World record in time management

How COVID-19 affected the Dabbawalas

The COVID-19 Pandemic has dealt a cruel blow to the men in white. Thousands of dabbawalas retreated to their original homes in rural locations as the virus raged across Mumbai, a city of over 20 million people, crippling the century-old food supply chain.

Some of them were surviving on state rations and charities. They neither had electricity nor mobile connectivity in their homes.

Till now, the government did not give permission for the dabbawalas to travel in local trains, which makes it difficult for them to reach their final destinations.

Growth of Dabbawalas

However, the world of Dabbawalas is challenging, showing the spirit and grit of Mumbai, a city with millions of people from different parts of the world.

Many dabbawalas have had to overcome challenges like floods and railway strikes. Also, they have had to advance their skills in recent times, like learning to speak English and embracing technology.

In October 2020, an official website for the dabbawalas, digitaldabbawala.com, was launched. It is an official website that includes details of all the delivery organizations.

In November 2020, they launched a Dabbawala app to make food delivery accessible and uncomplicated. The app helps you find food and order food from where you are.

You type an address, and the app tells you the restaurants that can deliver to your area. Also, you can search restaurants by cuisine, menu, and name.

Once you find what you want, you can place your order online without extra charges. The app also offers access to coupons, special deals, and a customer care team with 24/7 assistance.

Soon, the deliverymen started growing their services from delivering lunchboxes to delivery of digital services like electronic registration of marriages and property.

Customers can now place their lunch orders through the website. In addition, they can choose between a monthly or annual subscription for payment.

The dabbawalas partner with 14 local restaurants to deliver food to clients. Recently, they have been encouraging customers to order directly from the hotels and receive nearly 25% discount and free home delivery.

In August 2021, the dabbawalas launched their digital operation known as Central Kitchen, which lets customers place orders for a wide variety of food for delivery.

The idea behind these new creativities is to think outside the box and to expand the Mumbai Dabbawalas business, starting from lunch delivery to a wide range of other services that will help to protect their source of income and trade after the Pandemic is over.

The men in white continue to deliver lunch and protect the future of the world’s oldest and most respected Mumbai dabbawalla system.

The men in white will still be delivering lunch, though, safeguarding the future of one of the world’s oldest and most respected food delivery systems.

The dabbawalas show that an organization doesn’t need extraordinary talent to achieve outstanding performance with the right system.

In today’s modern age, when we are addicted to the latest technologies, the example of Mumbai Dabbawalas shows that sometimes the best plan is the “simplest.”

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Dabbawala Case Study: How Mumbai Thrives On This Model?

Aashita Singh

Updated on: March 22, 2024

Mumbai dabbawala service has made it easy for the people to have and enjoy freshly home cooked meals either at their offices or other working places.

This service has led many people who hail from different parts of the country come to Mumbai to work and live, to have a meal which is home cooked and healthy.

Let’s start with our discussion of the Mumbai Dabbawala Case Study and how Mumbai has been living on this model since decades! 

(A) Mumbai Dabbawala Profile 

Mumbai Dabbawala or the name by which is famously called, “The Dabba Service” started from the late 1800s i.e. 1890, serves freshly cooked meals to people either from their homes or from the dabba service places. 

The Dabbawala service was initially started by Mahadeo Havaji Bachche in 1890 as a small business, and now has become one of the world recognized businesses. 

Apart from being a prominent dabba service in Mumbai, it also offers various services and facilities like, Ted talk in various business schools, seminars, lectures, a day with dabbawala, app service, etc. all the factors which contributes to its key position as the leading player in the dabba service in Mumbai. 

Beyond all this, Mumbai dabbawala has been awarded with various recognition like the Six Sigma.

That narrates the tale of Mumbai Dabbawala of not only showcasing an unparalleled service but have also earned their place in the global standards of operational efficiency by achieving Six Sigma certification, which translates to an error ration of just 1 in 16 million, or simply translated as a single error in 1,60,00,000 lunch boxes.

(B) Dabbawala Business Model 

The business model used by Dabbawala is a blend of simplicity, user-centric approach, efficiency, and dedication. The dabbawalas work on a single aim, i.e. to serve the people and the society with their best services. 

The Mumbai Dabbawala service operates their business mainly on four pillars, i.e. organization, management, process, and culture. 

The above four principles are core elements of the Dabbawala Service, which has been crucial for the business which has been opening for many years now. 

(B.1) How Did the Idea of Dabbawala Originated? 

Around 130 years ago, a Parsi Banker working in Fort Branch only wanted to have his home cooked meal in his office. For that he hired a young man named Mahadeo Havaji Bacche, who would daily get his lunch from his home in the afternoon.

That is how the concept and the first dabbawala emerged. 

With time, with the vision and hard work of Mahadeo Havaji Bacche, the business started growing and thriving in the city and has a large workforce to operate. 

(B.2) How did this business become an exception?

• The dabbawala service delivers over 2,00,000 tiffins on a daily basis from their homes or dabba service to their offices. 
• It delivers all its services and transactions in almost 6 hours, six days a week, before lunch time, without any mistakes.
• All this success has been achieved by Dabbawalas without the intervention of any technological tool at low cost and in an eco-friendly manner.
• Later on, they have made their own app for catering to more people and offering more services. 

• It has been awarded with the title of “ Six Sigma” from the study conducted by the Harvard Business School, which means that the dabbawalas made less than 3.4 errors per million transactions.
• Mumbai Dabbawalas have employed around 5,000 people for delivering its services, and many of them are less educated, or have not appropriate reading knowledge, but they operate efficiently and provide their best services. 
• A force of hardworking people has led them to achieve this success and become a prominent name all over the world. 
• The Mumbai Dabbawalas were also visited by Mr. Richard Branson, a british entrepreneur and adventurer and Prince Charles during his visit to India.

(B.3) Major Events of Mumbai Dabbawalas  

(c) marketing mix strategy .

One of the key factors of Dabbawala case study is the marketing mix which it has been following for years. The dabbawala operates on 6 P’s of marketing mix, which is Product, Place, Price, Promotion, and People. 

(C.1) Product 

The primary service of the Dabbawala is to provide the freshly home cooked meal lunch boxes from the customer’s home and deliver them at their offices. Along with that they also collect their tiffin boxes after lunch and deliver them back to their home. 

With that they also offer advertising facilities with them, workshops, seminars, and more of it. 

(C.2) Place

Mumbai Dabbawala, an Indian business organization, primarily operates its services in Mumbai. The dabbawalas also take their service orders through SMSs. It has a wide distribution network and a workforce of nearly 5,000 workers.

(C.3) Price 

Mumbai Dabbawala has a turnover of around Rs.36 crores annually, and its services cost within a range of Rs.300 to 1,000.  The affordable pricing for its services, the annual subscription model for payments, the uniform pricing strategy, no hidden costs, all contribute to an easy marketing mix. 

(C.4) Promotion  

The organization that has been operating from decades now has been well famous and a prominent name in the city Mumbai. They have mostly adopted the mouth publicity for their business.

They rely on their exceptional service model and quality assurance of operations. Many production houses, companies, promote their messages and movies through dabbawala. 

(C.5) People 

The success and growth of Mumbai Dabbawala largely depends on the people it serves. They are the backbone and the key elements of the entire operation of Dabbawalas. The business has high skilled workers, teamwork, coordination, training, and has good customer relations. 

(D) Unique Coding System 

Instead of putting names for different stations, tiffin deliveries, office place, etc. they have a unique full proof coding system of delivering dabbas. Some of them are- 

Let’s have a look at the other factors constituting the Mumbai Dabbawala case study!

(E) Other Factors Analysis 

Above were some other factors which contributed to its growth and overall success over the years. It’s a mix of its teamwork, coordination, delivery systems, returning facility, coding system. 

Over the years, the Mumbai Dabbawala has kept their services simple and unique. With time they have developed their own app and site which has helped to connect to more customers and make a more simplified process. 

Summing Up: The Dabbawala Case Study

The Mumbai Dabbawala Service , one of the most famous things of Mumbai. The dabbawala service that has been operating and providing its best services to the people since 1890, is one of most anticipated case studies to look at. 

Note: We do have case studies of other famous names like

• Taj Mahal Case Study ,
• Zara Case Study ,
• Starbucks Case Study ,

Be it providing the on time tiffin delivery service, doing seminars, unique coding system of tiffin’s, exceptional service over the years, delivering ted talks, etc. all constitute as the major key elements of the dabbawala case study. 

Mumbai Dabbawala service believes in the simple working techniques which offers high quality in low prices. 

Related Posts:

Apart from being many tiffin services available, this Dabbawala service still remains everyones favourite and on top. Have been using this service from a long time now!

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Most of their workers are illiterate and the last major upgrade the 125 year-old organisation made to its delivery chain was the bicycle. Yet the Mumbai dabbawalas deliver and return 130,000 dabbas, or tiffins, every day. According to Forbes magazine, they have a Six Sigma rating of 99.999999, which means less than one out of every six million deliveries goes amiss.

Since the publication of the article in Forbes in 1998, the dabbawalas have been the darlings of the international media scene. They have been visited by Prince Charles and Richard Branson, who worked as a dabbawala for a day. They have also been studied by management schools around the world, all keen to learn just how they do it.

College-educated Manish had heard of the dabbawalas, following the excitement of Prince Charles’s visit in 2003. He saw that the semi-literate organisation did not understand how to use the opportunities that were coming their way.

“I saw I could make a big difference to the organisation. I first joined as a dabbawala, but now because I can make more money for the organisation, I spend most of my time travelling and speaking,” said Manish, who was in Kuala Lumpur three months ago to speak on “Inspiring Innovators”, a talk organised by the local office of international express delivery company TNT Express Worldwide (M) Sdn Bhd and ADOI magazine.

The lecture circuit has also taken Manish to Fortune 500 companies around the globe, as well as to Wharton and Stanford.

He is still bemused by the interest shown by the “MBAs”, as he calls them.

“Most of our members cannot read! Yet we’re constantly studied by the MBAs. Truth is, our members are suitably educated for their profession. We couldn’t employ MBAs; they’d ask too many questions,” he laughs.

Academic interest in the dabbawalas continues unabated. Earlier last year, Harvard Business School introduced its case study titled “The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time” as part of its MBA curriculum.

“It is very different from the organisations that our students study every day. It challenges their assumptions about the drivers of performance. It also inspires. The Dabbawala system works because of its people, not because of technology or sophisticated management,” says Stefan Thomke, co-author of the case study and William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard, in an email interview in December.

Thomke’s interest in the Dabbawalas started two years ago while he was in Mumbai working on another case study.

“I found a brief mention of the Dabbawala organisation while reading in my hotel room. I got interested because of the intellectual puzzle: ‘How can an organisation with no technology, no sophisticated logistics management system, and people with little education achieve such high-delivery performance — in a fast-moving city that can be very chaotic?’ ” he says.

Working with Mona Srivastava, a research associate at the HBS India Research Centre, Thomke compiled the case study over a period of six months, travelling between Boston and Mumbai.

Initially, Thomke assumed that the secret was in the operating system, in the way the Dabbawalas managed material and information flows.

“But it turns out that much of their success can be attributed to their human resource system — the way they hire, develop, manage and reward people. It’s an organisation built around people, not around technology,” says Thomke. “I wish that I could take all of our MBA students to Mumbai so they can see the system. Reading and discussing the case study in our classroom is the next best thing. Last time we taught the case, we had a live video conference with DWs (Boston-Mumbai) and students were able to ask questions.”

Gerry Powers, managing director for TNT Malaysia, confessed that he was both humbled and inspired by Manish’s talk at the TNT office in Menara PKNS.

“Technology is a wonderful thing but,  sometimes, I do wonder if we overcomplicate things,” says Powers.

TNT Worldwide itself was started by one man — Ken Thomas and his truck. Today, the global company employs over 75,000 people operating 26,000 road vehicles and 47 jet freighter aircraft across 200 countries.

“We have to remember that we are basically a people business and should not let bureaucracy make us difficult to deal with in any way. If you take care of your people, they will drive the service, drive growth and benefit the customers. So if my employees are not happy, I am nothing,” says Powers.

“Our dabbawalas view their work as worship. They are grateful to have work, and to serve others by delivering food is to serve God,” he says.

Harvard’s case study outlines one shining example of the commitment shown by the dabbawalas. In July 2005, unusually heavy monsoon rains, combined with record high tides, flooded Mumbai. Like their customers, many of the dabbawalas were stranded in trains, at railway stations and sidewalks for two days. Raghunath Medge, president of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association (one of the Mumbai Dabbawalas’ two governing committees), was trapped on a train with 10 other dabbawalas returning with empty dabbas. He recalled thinking, “We can’t leave without the dabbas and we can’t avoid the ditches and potholes while wading through the water.” Nevertheless, on the second day, even before the city recovered, the dabbawalas waded through waist-high water and delivered the dabbas back home.

“Everyone in Mumbai recognises the white Gandhi cap worn by our dabbawalas and they respect us for the work we do. They also know not to stand in our way!” says Manish, doffing his own. “In the mornings, when the dabbawalas collect the dabbas (around 9am), if the housewife is late with the dabba for more than a week, we will stop serving them. We are not going to let thousands suffer, waiting for their lunches, because one person was late. As a result, it’s said that the housewives of Mumbai are more afraid of the dabbawalas than they are of their husbands!”

The dabawallas’ dedication to their duty was observed firsthand by Prince Charles when he asked to meet with them in 2003. In response to his invitation for the dabbawalas to meet with him at his hotel, the dabbawalas replied: “Dear Prince Charles, we are unable to meet with you at your hotel as we will be delivering tiffins. However, if you will come to the train station at 10am, we will be sorting the tiffins and will be able to meet you then,” recites Manish.

The prince did indeed meet the dabbawalas at the Western Railway Headquarters opposite Churchgate station in south Mumbai, where he received a white Gandhi cap.

The universal respect they have gained enables the dabbawalas to take pride in their work despite their low income which averages INR7,000 (RM487) a month. “We don’t pay any salaries. Every single dabbawala is a shareholder and gets an equal share of the income,” says Manish.

The Harvard case study notes that when the dabbawala organisation first started, one dabbawala would be in charge of an area and would hire 15 to 20 delivery boys. But in 1983, the dabbawalas moved to an owner-partner system based on a profit-sharing model. Each area is now run by groups of about 25 members who manage their own finances, customers and operational activities.

“Each dabbawala is capable of collecting up to 20 dabbas a day — but this is the maximum. Usually in a group, each dabbawala will collect less so that, if a dabbawala is sick, the others can compensate. New dabbawalas are hired only to replace a member or when there are too many new customers in an area,” explains Manish.

Turnover for the dabbawalas is nearly non-existent. Members, only four of whom are women, range in age from 18 to 65, with senior members moving on to supervisory roles.

“If a dabbawala wants to leave, he has to find someone else to take his place,” says Manish. New members are recruited only from the 30 or so villages around Pune; many are relatives or friends.

“If someone wants to become a dabbawala, he will be on probation for six months on a salary of INR3,000. After which, if he wants to be a member and the others accept him, he will have to invest 10 times the expected monthly income in the group’s business (for example, if the group’s members earn INR7,000 a month each, the new dabbawala would have to pay INR70,000),” says Manish.

“If you want a dabbawala to come to your house, you ask a friend to tell their dabbawala, or you find a member and tell him. He will then quote a price based on where you live — it’s more expensive if you live far from a train station,” says Manish.  On average, each customer pays around INR300 (RM20.60) a month for the service.

So far, the dabbawala word-of-mouth system is good enough for them, he says. “We don’t have to spend on advertising, we have Prince Charles as our ‘brand ambassador’!” he laughs, adding that the prince’s visit catapulted the organisation to international fame. “Before him, it was just the MBAs.”

If there is one weakness to the dabbawala system, it is its inability to adapt and change in a city that is evolving rapidly. The case study by Harvard noted that over the past 40 years, the number of vehicles in Mumbai had grown from 61,000 vehicles in 1950 to over 1.02 million in 2008. The worsening traffic has made travelling by bicycle and transporting goods by handcart increasingly difficult and dangerous. The increase in traffic also resulted in more road repairs, forcing the dabbawalas to detour — and running or pedalling faster to cope.

The tight schedule the dabbawalas operate on also allows for little variation. When Manish attempted to glean additional revenue by distributing fliers and samples on behalf of corporations, the extra time needed to distribute the samples “threw their system out of gear”, observes the case study. The organisation is also unable to expand out of Mumbai as no other city in India has as comprehensive a railway system.

“The Mumbai dabbawalas will always be in Mumbai,” says Manish.

For now, Manish is trying to connect the dabbawalas with cell phones, thus enabling customers to contact their dabbawala. He’s confident that through sponsorship, the cellphone costs can be managed. But he is encountering resistance.

“My biggest wish is to do more for the organisation, but the members are reluctant to cooperate. For example, a company wanted to donate a large sum to our organisation, but in the end we never received it because our members insisted on the donation being made in cash. They simply cannot understand electronic transactions,” says Manish with a sigh. “But in some ways they are right. It’s the dabbawala himself and his commitment that matters, not the technology or qualifications.”

This article appeared in Management@work, the monthly management pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 839, Jan 3-9, 2011

Copyright © 1999-2023 The Edge Communications Sdn. Bhd. 199301012242 (266980-X). All rights reserved

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Six Sigma: A case study on Mumbai Dabbawala

The complete case study on six sigma implemented by Mumbai Dabbawalla : A food chain for delivering packed tiffins

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Sangita Ghodake

In a metropolitan city like Mumbai, a city that moves on wheels, a city that gives pan local and pan global experience, often gives feeling of isolation and alienation to her citizens. The absurdity of fast moving life in a metro often leads to universal question, 'why do we exist?' The answer lies in optimistic attitude of Mumbai Dabbawalas/ Tiffinwalas whose coping mechanism teaches us how to live and enjoy every single moment of life. They flow with the flow of life by maintaining self respect and dignity. The city plays a role of a protagonist who steers us to 'never say die'. The Dabbawala or Tiffinwallas have crossed the boundaries of publicity. Right from Prince Charles of Wales, England to a case study of Harward management students have shown their keen interest in the management skills of the semi-literate and non-technical dabbawalas. The present paper is a humble attempt of describing Mumbai city in brief. Life of Mumbai dabbawalas would be described through socio-cultural and financial aspects. Being a teacher of literature, I would like to describe Mumbai and dabbawalas through a Bollywood movie The Lunch Box that has won accolades in national and international film festivals. The movie is a bittersweet romantic comedy in which Mumbai city life is portrayed with her special attribute 'dabbawala'. The movie depicts a story of two unknown people who get connected through misplacement of tiffin and their romantic letter friendship finally helps them to transcend life in the search of the 'self'. Their journey started from absurdity and boredom of cactus land that gradually turn into lands of roses and finally transcends them to spiritual quest for 'know thyself'. Key Words: Mumbai, alienation and isolation, dabbawalas, the lunch box, spiritual quest, transcendentalism TRANSCENDING LIFE THROUGH ROMANCE: MUMBAI TIFFINWALAS AND THE LUNCH BOX A journey of all rational and sensible human beings starts from ignorance to knowledge. Romanticism and transcendentalism are the steps that one has to come across in his/her life. Transcendentalism is closely associated with an individual's identity, temperament, philosophy and spirituality whereas romanticism was an intellectual and artistic movement of eighteenth century that deals with emotional upheavals. Every individual's journey of life moves from romanticism to transcendentalism. Immanuel Kant's transcendental philosophy shows strong faith in power of divinity and individuality. Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy of transcendentalism deals with wisdom and self realization. The present paper is a humble attempt to describe a life in metropolitan cities in general and Mumbai city in particular. Mumbai Dabbawalas/ Tiffinwallas are management Gurus (masters) of the hi-tech world of today. The researcher would like to describe socio-cultural aspect of Dabbawalas. The life of Mumbai inhabitants and the Dabbawalas will be described through a Bollywood movie The Lunch Box. The protagonists' romantic association led them to find their real self that

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The dabbawalas (tiffin carriers) of Mumbai are a unique community of around five thousand people who efficiently serve up to 2 lac (0.2 million) customers every day. They have been delivering daily lunches from homes to offices for over a century and any kind of error in their delivery process is almost negligible. They have maintained their heritage working process since the inception of the service and therefore any kind of technology has not been incorporated in their work. They are currently facing numerous business sustainability challenges such as reaching out to new customers and also in maintaining their existing customer base. In 8-10 years, the number of customers a dabbawala serves a day has reduced from 50 to around 20 now. Bachelor employees working for MNCs rarely rely on home cooked food and thus don't employ their services. Through our research we have understood that they might lose their current customer base soon as similar food delivery businesses with faster and better services are continuously emerging. To empower them we introduce Dabbawala — a mobile application that enables partnership between dabbawalas and food services around the city and directly connects them to their combined customer base. This application enables the customers to order lunch from anywhere from the city. Customer registrations and any kind of money transactions are all handled through the application. The application is also

In a metropolitan city like Mumbai, a city that moves on wheels, a city that gives pan local and pan global experience, often gives feeling of isolation and alienation to her citizens. The absurdity of fast moving life in a metro often leads to universal question, 'why do we exist?' The answer lies in optimistic attitude of Mumbai Dabbawalas/ Tiffinwalas whose coping mechanism teaches us how to live and enjoy every single moment of life. They flow with the flow of life by maintaining self respect and dignity. The city plays a role of a protagonist who steers us to 'never say die'. The Dabbawala or Tiffinwallas have crossed the boundaries of publicity. Right from Prince Charles of Wales, England to a case study of Harward management students have shown their keen interest in the management skills of the semi-literate and non-technical dabbawalas. The present paper is a humble attempt of describing Mumbai city in brief. Life of Mumbai dabbawalas would be described through socio-cultural and financial aspects. Being a teacher of literature, I would like to describe Mumbai and dabbawalas through a Bollywood movie The Lunch Box that has won accolades in national and international film festivals. The movie is a bittersweet romantic comedy in which Mumbai city life is portrayed with her special attribute 'dabbawala'. The movie depicts a story of two unknown people who get connected through misplacement of tiffin and their romantic letter friendship finally helps them to transcend life in the search of the 'self'. Their journey started from absurdity and boredom of cactus land that gradually turn into lands of roses and finally transcends them to spiritual quest for 'know thyself'.

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Tiffin carriers of Mumbai (Dabbawalas) are a well-known figure of the Indian metropolis. So “typical” is their profession that important foreign guests –like recently Prince Charles- are offered to visit them at Victoria Terminus or Churchgate Station where they meet in order to deliver the lunch of their 100.000 customers. The existence of their activity is closely linked to Mumbai geographical specificities, but it is also a result of the multiple differences concerning food habits which exist between Indians. This paper will, in a first part, presents how the Dabbawalas system is an actual answer allowing the respect of the different food habits. The second part is devoted to the explanation of the Dabbawalas system of delivery: sort of a relay race which has been developed by these rural migrants showing a remarkable knowledge of the metropolis.

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