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LUCKNOW, INDIA, January 21, 2004: After impressing Prince Charles with their clockwork precision and managerial skills, the famous dabbawalas, or tiffin carriers, from Mumbai are all set to teach some tricks of their trade to over 1,000 management students gathered in Lucknow, India. The students of IIM-Lucknow have invited representatives of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Carriers Association, Raghunath Medge and Gangarao Talekar, to Manfest- 2004, their annual festival. The theme of this year’s festival is “The complete CEO workout.” One topic of discussion, “Dabbawalas’ experiment can’t be replicated elsewhere. Do you agree?” During their interaction with the dabbawalas, the students from 50 management institutes across the country would learn how they have managed to survive in a competitive market and have expanded their business over the years. Among others invited to the festival are former cricketer Kapil Dev, Telephone Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairperson Pradip Baijal, besides several management gurus.



The dabbawalas who have been in operation since 1890, and are a lifeline for a majority of the officegoers in Mumbai, supplying homemade food at affordable rates. By “homemade,” they mean “homemade,” that is, prepared by the person’s family, packed and handed to the dabbawala for delivery to the family member at work. There are close to 5,000 dabbawalas, in Mumbai today, supplying around 200,000 dabbas (tiffin boxes) across the length and breadth of the city every day. Most of them hail from Pune district. With an interesting color-coding scheme, comprehensible even to the illiterates, the dabbawalas manage their supply network with an enviable precision. An employee drops the lunch boxes (known as tiffins), collected individually from homes, at the nearest railway station. From here, the boxes go through a series of complex but well worked out transport systems, including trains, motors and bicycles, passing through multiple hands, before finally landing at the customer’s table at his office.



The tiffins are collected, sorted out, coded and sent to their destinations. Every station has a numerical code and each place has an alphabetical code. The tiffin carries the code of the source and the destination. The codes help them identify each tiffin owner. The system has been developed over the years and perfected, beginning with colored threads and evolving to more systematic and logical codes. Whether it is the manager of a bank, a computer engineer, or a 10-year-old waiting for piping hot puris in school, the dabbawalas cater to all. The only hindrance would be a railway strike. The dabbawalas will explain their foolproof method to the young aspiring managers, and hope it would prove beneficial for them in their long-term business enterprises.

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