The Mumbai Dabbawalas - Redefining Traditional Management with exceptional excellence

Majority of Organizations today are becoming result oriented with least number of errors in their transactions and are able to manage their widely diversified literate workforce with the help of technology, but Dabbawalas prove to be an odd pick out of them.
 

Imagine delivering 200,000 hot lunches every day on time –in a city where traffic is regularly jam packed. And then imagine having to pick up and return the food containers, collect the money, and pay the drivers – most of whom cannot read or write, without adopting any technology?
 

Dabbawalas deliver more than 2,00,000 lunch boxes with the help of 5,000 Dabbawalas per day. The Organization’s Turnover is about Fifty Crores annually.

The American business magazine 'Forbes' has given a six-sigma performance (Error rate: 1 in 16 million transaction i.e 99.999999%) rating to them along with multinationals like Motorola and GE. The Dabbawalas were also featured in a 'BBC' documentary, 'Ripley's Believe it or not' and mentioned in the 'Guinness World Records'.

Dabbawalas have this exceptional ability of effectively managing their illiterate and semiliterate work force, delivering services on time, without any compromise, standardizing their services at a minimal cost, non dependence on technology and motor vehicles (no fuel costs, dabbawallas use cycles as their mode of transport), and  maintaining 100% customer satisfaction in this complex business world.

Today the Dabbawalas have welcomed the use of internet technology only for increasing their customer base and nothing more. 

Mumbai Dabbawalas redefine the saying “Old is Gold” as they still follow the traditional ways of Management which is a core element that contributes to their performance excellence. Effective hierarchy, Co-ordination and Support, Work ethics, Discipline and Time Management are some of the note worthy management lessons that are to be learnt from them.

                                                                                                                       - Ram Kishore

                                                                                                       kishore.sid2@gmail.com

Rising Above - BRICS

BRICS -The new kid around the financial block with the hopes of playing a greater part in the world which is dominated by the western powers.
 

So what is BRICS? Simply put it is a bank that lends money to countries for their development projects. Hence, the name “NEW DEVELOPMENT BANK”. Now, this is what both IMF and WORLD BANK are supposedly doing, but what role can BRICS play where those institutions have already been doing “successfully”.

The issue is that the World Bank does not work like a bank for the entire world; it is just an Americanized World Bank.

Still not clear? Let us break it down even more. For this purpose we will dive a little deep...

Significant positions in the World Bank, major resources and projects are swayed towards U.S and its allies’ interests. In fact all the presidents of the World Bank group have always been American. The voting power of the U.S.A in the World Bank is 16.28% while for India and China it is 3.0% and 4.8% respectively. The same applies to the IMF also. While the organization’s top priority is poverty elimination for over 60 years now, only negligible amount of people have come out of poverty.

The World Bank proposed to invest $100 billion for development but only $12 billion has been  materialized. Projects only get approval if they are huge and get tech assistance from the west where local people would not be benefited much.

While BRICS Enjoy half of world’s population, quarter of land mass, and one fifth of world’s GDP which is 16.9 Trillion$, almost very close to American economy which is 17.5 Trillion$...

  

 ...BRAZIL, rich in oil& iron ores, over took U.K to become 6^th in GDP in 2012 in addition to rapidly developing cities and technological advancements.

Shying away from western partners RUSSIA is equivalent to U.S in terms of technology, manufacturing and research capabilities which is the experience valued by the BRICS members.

INDIA, pulling almost 200 million people from poverty in the last 50 years, has also prospered many middle class families and 10 out of 30 fastest growing cities are in India. Being called “Back office of the world” and projecting the image of low cost technology pioneer, India is highly desired for complex missions.

CHINA, an upcoming superpower, economic superblock, which is regarded as the manufacturing hub of the world, lifted a large number of people from poverty, rapidly developing as a nation and looking for more markets for investment and for its goods.

SOUTH AFRICA, a small GDP compared to all other BRICS nations but has a major upcoming market, serves as economic corridor towards African continent which is rich in core resources and untapped oil.

HURDLES TO OVERCOME

                --Depleting resources may hinder with the growth of the BRICS nations.

                --Corruption percentage is high in China, India and Russia which needs to addressed.

                --Border disputes to be settled.

                --Chinese dominance among BRICS nations may be high.

                --Other BRICS nations have to grow rapidly as China is larger than all other BRICS nations combined.

BRICS will thrive if and only if cooperation between them stands the test of time and if it does, the world will see a new world order with multipolar, equally distributed power blocks.

- Manicharan 

manicharanr@gmail.com