book review of dabbawalas
Dabawalas
Dabawalas, the story of Mumbai’s homemade food delivery service gives an insight of a 115-year old enterprise and what makes it a successful enterprise. Through the series of conversation amongst four characters- Anita Dalal, Srinivas Pandit, Raghunath Megde (Raghu) and Gangram Talekar (Ganga) a different perspective of organisation and its working model is known. At the end of every chapter are the takeaways which tell the reader how Dabawalas differ from their competitors in their working style and thought process. Started in 1890, the organisation-Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust, has grown from 35 to 5000 dabawalas. The organisation comprises of a governing council consisting of 13 members that includes the president, vice -president, general secretary, treasurer and nine directors. Under them are groups of mukadam. Every mukadam has its own team of dabawalas.
Every individual in the organisation is assigned a role; be it the mukadam or the dabawala or any of the governing council. Everyone plays an important role. Each role has its task significance in the process of delivering food. And to the role, role expectations are attached. Every individual is expected to perform his job and not to outsmart his teammates. As a result of this there are no role conflicts. In situations when there are grievances and/or complaints between dabawalas, mukadam resolves it and the president or vice-president looks into the issues not resolved by mukadam. One of the pillars on which the organisation stands is Values. The organisation is based on the principle of strong Sevadharma value set. Values play the most integral part of the business – their central value being “teamwork=network=cooperation”. Besides professional value, they have their own personal values like praying before having lunch etc. They have strong instrumental values as they believe in achieving their goal of delivering the food/lunchbox in time by not breaking any
Dabawalas, the story of Mumbai’s homemade food delivery service gives an insight of a 115-year old enterprise and what makes it a successful enterprise. Through the series of conversation amongst four characters- Anita Dalal, Srinivas Pandit, Raghunath Megde (Raghu) and Gangram Talekar (Ganga) a different perspective of organisation and its working model is known. At the end of every chapter are the takeaways which tell the reader how Dabawalas differ from their competitors in their working style and thought process. Started in 1890, the organisation-Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust, has grown from 35 to 5000 dabawalas. The organisation comprises of a governing council consisting of 13 members that includes the president, vice -president, general secretary, treasurer and nine directors. Under them are groups of mukadam. Every mukadam has its own team of dabawalas.
Every individual in the organisation is assigned a role; be it the mukadam or the dabawala or any of the governing council. Everyone plays an important role. Each role has its task significance in the process of delivering food. And to the role, role expectations are attached. Every individual is expected to perform his job and not to outsmart his teammates. As a result of this there are no role conflicts. In situations when there are grievances and/or complaints between dabawalas, mukadam resolves it and the president or vice-president looks into the issues not resolved by mukadam. One of the pillars on which the organisation stands is Values. The organisation is based on the principle of strong Sevadharma value set. Values play the most integral part of the business – their central value being “teamwork=network=cooperation”. Besides professional value, they have their own personal values like praying before having lunch etc. They have strong instrumental values as they believe in achieving their goal of delivering the food/lunchbox in time by not breaking any