Recently, we had a special guest at our office to talk about their legendary story of delivering tiffin in Mumbai. The speaker, Raghunath D. Medge, and his Mumbai Dabbawala Association have a mission of delivering food on time, every time. They are, the association of mostly Varkari, so much devoted to this mission that they consider serving food is like serving God. They are Mumbai’s dabbawala.

Serving food is like serving God!

Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier Association (NMTBSA) is much more than just a tiffin delivery service. They have a legacy of 125 years. They have endured extreme monsoons, riots, terrorist-attacks, and worker union-strikes in Mumbai. They are legendary due to their reliability – they deliver to right person on-time, every time. They are decentralized workforce of 5000 poorly educated people, who are transacting 4, 00,000 tiffin for about 60-70 kms every day using trains and bicycles.
They have gained a lot of attention worldwide due to their achieved and sustained level of service performance over so many years. They are recognized for delivering 6-Sigma (even better) level of accuracy i.e. only 1 mistake in 1 million chances. They have been awarded by ISO certification and several other recognition. It has attracted visits by Prince Charles, Richard Branson, and several famous logistic companies. No wonder, lot of documentaries and studies have also been conducted by various universities, B-Schools to understand the secret of their Service Excellence.
From the talk delivered by the speaker, following very simple yet powerful qualities of dabbawala association were clearly evident:
  1. Strong Sense of Commitment: They are so much devoted to their work as they are serving God. Their devotion clearly manifests their self-discipline, adherence to set norms/process. They understand delay caused by a single dabbawala will affect more than 100 customer in the chain.
  2. Strong Game Plan:  They have very clearly defined game-plan, which was evident in the form of their tiffin coding system, their bicycles availability, tiffin uploading in a local train in 40 seconds, tiffin sorting methods, work-division methods (considering age/gender) and so on.
  3. Extra-Ordinary Team Work: Each dabbawala shares the same identity and takes pride in their work. Each dabbawala is an entrepreneur and an equal shareholder in the association. They implement their game plan as a single team. They competes yet they cooperate.

Their success story is a proof that that with Right Culture and Game Plan in place, Ordinary Team can achieve Extraordinary Outcomes 


[full_width]