Dabbawalla

If you have ever been to Mumbai, you would know what I am talking about. The Dabbawalla's are a familiar sight in streets, trains, offices, in Mumbai city. Before you ignore this and start to think what is the big deal about a tiffin carrier, consider this.

The dabbawallas are a part of India's most Efficient Networking System. Around 4500 dabbawallas transport approximately 200,000 dabbas everyday across 25 km of mumbai in 3 hours. The union known as Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association was started around 120 years ago, and today is an integral part of the mumbai way of life, supplying the office-goers with home-made food. Mumbai is truly a cosmo city, with people from various parts of the country making their living here, and though there is no dearth of places to eat in mumbai, nothing can replace a home-cooked meal and they supply just that for a monthly fee.

The dabbawallas have been given a six sigma rating (This rating indicates a 99.999999 accuracy percentage of correctness) by forbes for their business practice, and their business model is being studied by various management institutes. In 1970's BBC had covered a documentary of these people and more recently Prince Charles expressed his desire to meet them, and did so in 2003 . Apart from being shot in Canadian and American documentries they have also been guest lectures at premier management institutes like the IIM's, NITIE,
symbiosis, among others. Corporate heads recognize them and Management Gurus consider them to be a prime example of management guru Michael Porter's Five Forces Theory at work.

More recently the dabbawallas have gone hi-tech, by launching a website for themselves, and being available by mobile phone sms.