The wonder of dabbawallas

Denis (http://mysenko.com), an old University friend of mine, who happens to be living in Mumbai at the moment starting his own company Esperanza Consulting pointed me to quite an interesting entrepreneurship - Dabbawallas.

A dabbawala (one who carries the box), is a person in the Indian city of Mumbai whose job is to carry and deliver freshly made food from home in lunch boxes to office workers.

There are 5000 dabbawallas (uneducated and in most cases even illiterate) in Mumbai and they manage to deliver 200 000 lunches a day in an unbelievably effective and reliable way: there is only one mistake in every 6,000,000 deliveries.

Add to the facts that this structure is existent for over 120 years and neither uses technology nor has its infrastructure and you will understand why I called it a wonder. Shouldn't we all have a better look at the way they work and try to learn from these people?

Having done a very quick research I can now highlight a couple of basic and most important points:

• "Error is horror"- every single dabbawalla knows that there is nothing worse than a mistake
• Customer in the first place: nothing can stop the process. Even bad weather, transport delays or storms are not an acceptable excuse for late delivery. Amazing, but when Prince Charles expressed a desire to see the operations, the dabbawallas requested him to schedule the meeting such that it did not interfere with their mid-day delivery timings.
• "Complexity opposes Compliance". Dabbawallas use very simple and effective colour coding to mark destinations (remember: most of employees are illiterate). No technology traps, infrastructures and budgets. 
• Do not deviate from your core competency. Dabbawallas are aware that any set of additional services would require building completely new Supply Chain and, most importantly, will cannibalize existing market.
• Flat organization: dabbawallas virtually have no boss due to they are all shareholders themselves. Besides, they are always in power of making instant decision.
• Keep people united: there is a strong network between dabbawallas. Not only they work in small groups, but also meet altogether every month to sort out any differences and issues.
• Human capital is the one and only Dabbawallas' business asset. Most of the people work there for over 30 years. They know their work, their customers, their peers.
• Be humble ;)

Pretty Lean, eh?

You can find a lot more information on http://www.mydabbawala.com/ 

You can even plan your own "Day with Dabbawalla" and see the whole organization from inside. If you accept all the rules, of course.