Dabbawalas of Mumbai

I was in Mumbai over the weekend, to meet an accomplished friend from the ‘BoP world’. The city, previously called Bombay, though rainy and humid, was as charming as ever. The teeming megapolis, with 17 million inhabitants, is a striking example of the economic disparity that defines contemporary India. Real estate prices in Mumbai’s Nariman Point are comparable to those in New York and London. On the other hand, Dharavi, one of Asia’s largest slums, is home to a million people, most of who survive on less than $2 a day.

Take a stroll on one of Mumbai’s busy streets and you are likely to meet men clad in white attire and Gandhi topis (caps), scurrying past with cartloads of lunch boxes. They are Dabbawalas of Mumbai, well known for their six sigma-rated service quality. A dabbawala (a Hindi word that translates into ‘a person with a box’) is someone who delivers home-cooked lunch to office-goers and businessmen in Mumbai, at a nominal monthly fee. A dabbawala’s service might involve only delivering cooked food from the client’s home or both cooking and delivering the food, based on the client’s preference. Sounds simple, eh? What’s stunning is the fact that dabbawalas deliver nearly 200,000 dabbas (lunch boxes) everyday, with six sigma quality, which means that there is only one mistake in every 6,000,000 deliveries!

The dabbawalas have existed for more than a century and have become an essential part of Mumbai’s social fabric. They travel either by foot or bicycles or suburban trains and barely use any technology. Their service is uninterrupted, even during Mumbai’s dreaded monsoon rains.

There are an estimated 5000 dabbawalas in Mumbai, most of whom are illiterates and come from very poor backgrounds. They are all shareholders of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Supply Trust which  has a turnover of nearly 450 million rupees (approximately $11.25 million) per annum. Dabbawalas have never gone on strike and four years ago, they allotted just 20 minutes to Prince Charles to meet them so that their customers are not kept waiting. Their excellent teamwork and time management system has been featured as a case study by Harvard Business Review and they have presented their business model to various corporate houses such as Tata, Coca Cola, Daimler Chrysler and Reliance Industries. Riding on this success, the Dabbawalas are now planning to start a Supply Chain Consulting business.

The dabbawala story is an inspiring success story and demonstrates that simple ideas, when executed with discipline and dedication, can bring amazing results at the base of the pyramid.