Book Review

on

DABAWALAS

BY
SHRINIVAS PANDIT
PRESENTED BY:

MANISH SINGH

ROLL NO. : 043

BOOK DETAILS:
§
§
§ NO. OF PAGES : 102
§
§PUBLISHER : TATA McGRAW-HILL
§
§LANGUAGE : ENGLISH
§
§EDITION : Third reprint 2008
§
§No. of pages covered: 1- 20
Author ’ s profile:
Shrinivas Pandit is a veteran HR professional and a leadership
counsellor . His clients include Indonesia, Biocon Group, Bangalore,and
Pitambari,Mumbai.

Previously he was Execuitve Vice-president (Pernsonnel) Siemens

ltd. Prior to that he had Human Resource Dept of Blue Star and
Johnson and Johnson.

He is a graduate in Economics and law and obtained a post-

graduate in diploma in Personal Management and Industrial relations
from London School of economics.

He has previously authored three widely acclaimed books - Thought

Leaders, Design Your Career and Exemplery CEO’s. He has also written
various articles in career guidance, organisation culture, leadership,
mind-set change.

CONTACT I.D. : shrinpandit2hotmail . com

ABOUT THE BOOK:
DABAWALAS, the story of Mumbai’s 115 years old business
enterprise, run by semi-literate people. They are the home-made
food delivery man.

Through the conversation between four character, the book

brings some key characteristics of successful organisation.
These characteristics can be:

Values, Decentralised decision-making, Continous value

addition to customer care, time-management etc.

Besides this, the book also includes some qualities that the
leaders and managers must contain for building ever-lasting
successful organisation.
 DABAWALAS
Intr oduction:

This book describes 115 year old business operation of people.

It is unfolded by dialogue between 4 people namely the author

SHRINIVAS PANDIT’ , Raghunath Medge ( Raghu): President ,
Gangaram Talekar( Ganga) : General Secretary of
NutanMumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust and ‘Anita Dalal
‘, a journalist and well-known business consultant.

In this book the author and Anita discusses with Raghu and
Gangathe various aspects of the working of their trust.
AIM OF THE TRUST :
The aim of the trust is to provide home-made food to the people
thereby providing customer satisfaction.

Timely durability, Courteous Behaviourand Understanding needs of the

customers form the basis of business durability.

WORKING OF THE TRUST:

Like a well settled organisation this trust also have a governing
council. Trust cosistsof hierarchy type council consisting of 13
members. These include
Ø PRESIDENT
Ø VICE – PRECIDENT
Ø GENERAL SECRETARY
Ø TREASURERS
Ø DIRECTORS
Ø MUKADAMS
WORK DEECRIPTION OF THE OFFICIAL :
Ø President and Vice – President are responsible for
conducting monthly meeting,bank accounts
analysis etc.

Ø General Secretary – handle daily matter of the trust,

administrative matter etc.

Ø Treasurer – handles accounts of the trust.

Ø DIRECTORS- helps President in decision making and smooth

functioning of the trust.

Ø MUKADAMS - are the leaders of 25-30 dabawalas. Their work

include sorting out Tiffin boxes, maintaining
records of the payments, arranging substitutes for
absent dabawalas.
 Reasons for Existence :

vPeople’s craving for home-made food.

v
vCharges of the ‘Dabawalas‘ are cheapers as compared to
hotels.
v
vPeople trusts on the ‘Dabawalas’ tremendously due to
their punctuality and less error margins.

DISTRIBUTION OF WORK:

The senior dabawala undertakes the task of sorting at hubs

whereas the junior’s task invoves a lot of leg-work like
collection, loading,unloading etc. This arrangement is a leveller.
Reasons for Success:
q Trust among the ‘Dabawalas’ members.
q
qThey work efficiently in a team and are dependent on one another.
q
qThey are well disciplined and possess Gandhi-cap and I.D. card
during working hours.
q
q The main aspect of their success is punctuality.
q
qThey are very efficient as their error rate is only 1 : 1600000.
Business Exapansion:
For this they prefer a basic MANTRA

“ The Harder you hold on to Old Customer , the quicker you find
the New Ones”.

Conclusion:
Hence we conclude that ‘Dabawala ’ works exactly like a post-office
with customer satisfaction being their primary concern.
THANK YOU ….
To be Continued …..