The Hindu Business Line : From Mumbai to Omaha - dabbawallah lessons in management

Kharagpur March 12 It was a "mesmerising experience" for the 40-member team of students and faculty members from the University of Nebraska, Omaha. For two hours, they listened in rapt attention to the "fascinating" story of the Mumbai dabbawallahs, the silence in the Kalidas auditorium at IIT Kharagpur being broken only by repeated rounds of applause.

The Nebraska University team were on a reciprocal visit to the Vinod Gupta School of Management (VSGOM) at IIT.

Last year, a 50-member team from VGSOM had visited Omaha for a seven-day study programme that culminated in a luncheon meeting with Mr Warren Buffet.

If the VGSOM students hoped to pick up tips on how to be successful in their investment decisions during their interface with Mr Buffet, for the visiting students from the University of Nebraska today's interaction with Mr Manish Tripathy, Director of Nutan Mumbai Tiffinbox Suppliers' Association proved to be a "unique learning experience in management techniques that focuses on not just following rules that are taught in B-schools but making your own rules and focusing on the core business," according to Mr Brock Price, one of the visiting students specialising in business management and international studies.

Like Mr Price, many of the visiting students said that the presentation by Mr Tripathy on the dabbawallahs' operations and the subsequent question and answer session with him gave them an opportunity to know of management techniques that cannot be acquired at any business school.

Mr Tripathy outlined a 20-point agenda from the Mumbai dabbawallah business model, which has bagged coveted certifications such as Six Sigma from the Forbes Group and ISO.

Mr Tripathy provided tips on keeping operating costs low, capital investment at a bare minimum, sticking to core competencies, minimising dependence on technology, keeping organisations flat for quick decision-making and keeping extras for fault tolerance.

He stressed the importance of commitment and the need to know the implication of failures. For the dabbawallahs, the latter is especially important.

The students were advised to build a service around existing infrastructure to contain costs.

They were asked to sort out labour issues amicably and not hesitate to "abandon bad customers," as they affect operations and profitability.

Like Mr Price, Ms Bosiljevac Marjio could connect with Mr Tripathy.

"I work in a hotel, where we get bad guests once in a while. It's nice to know that it's not bad management practice to refuse such guests," she said.

Mr Gonsendo Rodrica was "impressed with the simplicity of such a complicated job. The lesson I have learnt today is to keep things simple yet effective."

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