1. Presentation on Mumbai
Dabbawala
Group member:
Puja Agrawal
Pema Tamang Pakhrin
Sneha Agrawal
Tashi Dhundup Lama
Sunil Manadhar
Madhav Chaulagahi

2. Who is Dabbawala
 A dabbawala is a person with a box. He
is the person who supplies the house
made food to the person carrying in the
lunchboxes.
 Also known as tiffinwala, tiffin supplier or
anadata.

3. History of Dabbawala
 Mumbai dabbawala carrying and delivering freshly
made food from home in lunch boxes to office
workers.
 Dabba – “box”
 Started in 1890 under British rule
 125 years old and recognized as the best case of
network management in the world even by the
management gurus and growth 5-10%annually.
 Highly specialized trade

4. Nuttan Mumbai Tiffin boxes
Suppliers Association
 History-started in 1890
 Charitable trust-Registered in 1956
 Education -85% illiterate
 Total area coverage -60 km/70km
 Employee stength-5000
 No. of dabbas-200000 dabbas i.e. 400000
transaction everyday
 Time taken- 3hrs

5. Organization Structure
 There are mainly 13
members in the
organization

6. Economic Analysis
 Everyone gets paid about two to four thousand
rupees per month
 More than 175000 or 200000 lunches get
moved everyday by an estimated 4500 to 5000
dabbawala.

7. Supply chain of Dabbawala
 Pickup dabba from residence
and bring it to Andhari station
 Journey in local train
 Uploading and sorting at
destination station
 Delivery to respective customer
 Collection of empty Dabba
 Sorting at destination stations
 Returning Dabba

8. “A day with Dabbawal plan”
 One can go along with dabbawala from
morning to evening. We can travel with
them, know about them and participate in
their work throughout the day, till the dabba
returned back.

9. Swot analysis of Dabbawala
 Strength
 Teamwork, Discipline & Honesty
 Time Management
 Ownership & Pride in the work
 Customer Satisfaction
 Low Operational Cost, Process Consistency
 Service Delivery of Sig Sigma Standard
 Service Commitment [No strike since inception]
 Satisfaction of Team Members [due to low attrition]
 Fool proof delivery model through color coding
 Financial independence for the small group of
dabbawalas
 Just in Time Approach

10. Conti..
 Weakness
Highly dependent upon Mumbai Local Train
Service
Limited access to education limits
diversification of Members to other business /
jobs
Limited fund flow for the association limits
the governing body to implement welfare
schemes

11. Conti…
 Opportunity
 Tie up with Caterers to serve variety of Meals i.e.
Diet food, Chinese/Continental Food, Food for
Fasting
 Opportunity of expansion of service on the routes of
Mumbai Metro.
 Generating Revenue by Promotion of other Brands
 Diversification by offering miscellaneous services
like Courier, Rail/Bus Ticketing etc.
 Expanding Network in other cities
 Booking of Service through internet & SMS
 Recently started – needs to be popularized

12. Conti..
 Threats
Threats from fast food joints & small
restaurants
Flexi-timing / Work from Home Culture
Food Courts at Malls / Mega Structures
Catering Services offering Tiffin Services
Paper Food Vouchers & Smart Cards.

13. Distribution Network
 Household Destination the
Dabbas are Collected Classified
based on Region Carried by appropriate
Transportation Distributed to various
Destination Railway System Collection, by
Bicycles-70% Foot-30% Sorting at Railway
Station Transportation by Train-80%
Bicycles-20% Distribution by Cart &
Bicycles 12%

14. Coding system of Dabba

15. Achievement
 Six Sigma Certification by Forbes group
 ISO 2000 Certificate to Dabbawala
 Outstanding service organization awards by
NIQR
 Marketing through Dabbawala many T.V.
channels and newspaper

16. conclusion
 It keeps operational cost as low as possible
 It keep capital investment bare minimum and
give first priority to the customer because they
think that customer is not the Raja but Maharaja
 Deviation from your core competency can
reduce focus and affect current sales and profits
negatively.
 Technology is to support business and business
is not there to support technology.
 There is flat organization.

17. Thank you