Last week, the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB), management students sat and heard the CEO of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier Association (NMTBSA), popularly known as ‘Mumbai Dabbawalas’, lecture them on management tricks. Must be sounding crazy! But the scale of operations of the organization could well be deciphered by the fact that with an employee strength of 5,000 men, mostly illiterate, the dabbawalas deliver and take back nearly 2,00,000 tiffins each day. This thus aggregates to almost 12 crore transactions in a single year, with the gross turnover between Rs.70 to 80 crores!
Dr. Pawan Agrawal, CEO of NMTBSA, addressed the faculty and students of the MBA School, XIMB, on July 17, 2009, at INSIGHT a CEO Talk organized by Illuminatix – Media and PR Cell of XIMB. The talk, laced with passion and energy, characterized the ‘Mumbai Dabbawalas’. Dr. Agrawal enlightened the audience by giving an insight into the operations of the organization. He gave a glimpse of a day in the lives of the dabbawalas, right from collection of tiffins to the final delivery before lunch time. The empty tiffins are then collected and taken back home, he added.
“The three-point formula which the organization owes its success to is of Discipline, Code of Conduct and Hard Work. Perhaps the only thing that differentiates the ‘Mumbai Dabbawalas’ from other organizations is the utmost importance they give to customer satisfaction,” Dr. Agarwal said and made the students of the MBA School aware of the minute details of supply chain management practices.
Without any technological backup and logistical support, the dabbawalas perform day-in and day-out with utmost precision, highlighting the reason why the organization is the only one in India and the second in the world to have got the elusive ‘6 Sigma’ rating. ‘6 Sigma’ rating means one error in 6 million transactions! Dr. Agrawal said, “It is the passion and devotion towards work which drive the dabbawalas; else they couldn’t have read the address in English, being illiterate.”
Dr. Agrawal engrossed the audience gathered at the MBA School in an interactive session in which he mentioned that hard work, honesty and diligence is the only way to success. This was followed by a unique ceremony in which Dr. Agrawal honored the XIMB faculty members by gifting them a trademark dabbawala cap.
Dr. Agrawal also recounted the famous meet of dabbawalas with Prince Charles back in 2003, and according to him, that event bought them into the public domain. “It’s a model of managerial and organizational simplicity,” Prof. CK Prahalad said, while talking about the organization. Numerous case studies have been done by various top MBA schools in India and abroad on the model.
The President of the organization Raghunath Medge had earlier said, “People study management books and then practice…we practiced first and have now become case studies…” ISO 9001:2000 certified, registered with Guinness Book of World Records, Winner of All India Pratibha Award, Rajeev Gandhi award and Baba Saheb Ambedkar Award, the organization features among the top 10 identities of the financial capital of the country.
