Here is my Reading list for 2011 -

Nonfiction Books

1. The Winning Way: Learnings From Sport For Managers by Harsha Bhogle and Anita Bhogle 

A book that correlates sportsmen and managers, examples from sports that can benefit managers in their organizations.

2. Mother Pious lady by Santosh Desai 

The book is an examination of the Indian way of life as it has changed over the last couple of decades.  A book that Prof. Govindrajan strongly recommended for budding marketeers and that meant I had to grab this one as soon as I could.

3.  The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford

While I may have not totally understood the complexities of economics, MBA has certainly ignited in me an interest to learn more. This book is supposed to be an interesting take on economics and is filled with examples to explain complex things in a simple manner.

4. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J 

Have heard so much about this book and how it had transformed economics from a boring subject to something that was fun and had made economists look “cool”, that I had to read this soon.

5. Fooled By Randomness: The Hidden Role Of Chance In Life And in Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb  

Luck, something that everybody believes they have less of it and  others have more. This book explores this very crucial life changing factor  “luck” and how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business.  The book was selected amongst the top 75 “Smartest Books Of All Times“.

6. Go Kiss The World: Life Lessons For The Young Professional by Subroto Bagchi

Have always enjoyed reading success stories of individuals. But more often than not have read only non- Indian success books. Looking forward to be inspired by this  book by Subroto Bagchi, co-founder of Mind Tree.

7. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! - by Richard Feynman

Quite different from the management non fiction books I generally read, this is an edited collection of reminiscences by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman.

8.  The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

Having seen the highly inspiring and emotional last lecture video by Randy Pausch, I had always wanted to read more about him. Do watch the video, the way a man who is about to die soon can be so humorous and happy about life is inspiring indeed. This book should definitely make for a good read.

9. Myth = Mithya by Devdutt Pattanaik 

Devduut Pattanaik is the best Indian mythological writers and amongst the best speakers I have heard. Devdutt Pattanaik’s articles in which he takes tales from mythology and imparts valuable life and management lessons have impressed me a lot. Constructed over generations, Hindu myths serve as windows to the soul, and provide an understanding of the world around us and the book is an attempt to retell those tales and what lessons they serve to provide us.

10. Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson

The story of a man who forced management thinkers to re-write their theories with his unconventional leadership try, this biography of Steve Jobs is right on top of my reading list.

11. The Emperor Of All Maladies: A Biography Of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

The reason for picking up this book was because I wondered how could a book on Cancer become a best seller and get so much of praise from across the world. I thought perhaps only doctors would be interested in reading this book. Lets see what this book is all about.

12. The Best Thing About You Is You! by Anupam Kher 

The book came for a lot of praise by many of my friends.  Using examples from his own life and experiences, Anupam Kher’s book is supposed to be a  motivating and inspiring read that provides a handy guide to discovering your real self .

13. Snapshots From Hell by Peter Robinson

A candid tale of his MBA experience at Stanford University, the book is supposed to be one of the best takes on life @ a B School. Now that I am done with an MBA, lets see how much I can relate to this?

14.  What They Do Not Teach You At Harvard Business School by Mark McCormack

Surely a business school does not teach you quite a few things about what it takes to be a successful manager.  This book looks at the secrets of what it takes to be a successful manager that a Business school would not teach you.

 15. Confessions Of A Serial Dieter by Kalli Purie

A book that came for some praise by Rashmi Bansal on her blog. Kalli’s confessions span the 3 years and 43 diets it took her to  to slim down from a peak of 103 kilos to 59 kgs. And the journey was not a pleasant one at all.

Fiction Books

1. The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor 

A satirical novel, that takes characters from the Mahabharata and puts them in the Indian Independence moment. Seems interesting. Never read anything by Shashi Tharoor and have heard quite a bit about his books. Lets see how they turn out to be.

2. The Average Indian Male by Cyrus Broacha 

The fact that Cyrus Broacha had written a book, I had to pick this one up and have a shot at it. Should make for a light read.

3. The Mine – Arnab Sen 

Arnab Sen  popular for his satirical and humorous blog - is out with his second book – The Mine. The book is a horror psychological-thriller, quite different from the genre of writing that Arnab’s blogs are. Lets see if it turns out to be as interesting like them.

4. The Goat, The Sofa And Mr Swami by R. Chandrasekar

The rather unusual and  interesting title had me attracted to this book and made me add this book  in my shopping cart . Lets see if my gut instinct was right.

5. Life Of Pi by Yann Martel 

Haven’t read too many Booker prize winning books (most of them spend too much time showing off their literary skills than in story telling) . But a lot of friends recommended me to try this one out. I promise I am going to get back at you guys, if the book puts me off to sleep.

6. The Immortals Of Meluha and The Secret Of The Nagas by Amish Tripathi 

Amish Tripathi can be well called the J.K. Rowling of the Indian book industry. His books that have managed to mix mythology and fiction to tell the story of Shiva from a fearless warrior to a God have been amongst the best selling Indian books for quite a while.

7. Madhouse : True Stories Of The Inmates Of Hostel 4 by Urmilla Deshpande

A mix of fact and fiction, more of fact than fiction. The book is supposed to be much more interesting than Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone. Lets see how it turns out to be.

8. The Five Dollar Smile by Shashi Tharoor 

Another one of Shashi Tharoor’s books that I plan to read this year. The book deals with such subjects as the traumas of youth, deceit, death, and more told through a series of short stories.

9. May I Hebb Your Attention Please by Arnab Sen

Another one of Arnab Sen’s books in my reading list. This is his debut book and true to his blog articles is more in the intelligent humor and satire genre.

10. Just Friends by Sumrit Shahi

I got this one free from landmark, so can not really complain. Cannot be that bad.

11. 34 Bubblegums And Candies by Preeti Shenoy 

Again got this one free from landmark. Have read her book, “Life Is What You Make Of It” , was a decent enough read. This book is a collection of short stories, that should make for a light read.

Times Of India – Nakka Mukka Campaign 

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However more recently, Times Of India came up with a campaign indirectly hitting at the market leader Hindu. The advertisement asked the people of Chennai to not go to sleep reading boring news served by newspapers (read Hindu) and to wake up to the exciting content provided by Times Of India.

Video : Wake Up Chennai Times Of India Campaign 

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Not someone to just stand there and take the potshots thrown at them, Hindu has come back strongly with an integrated marketing campaign – TV, print and internet.  The  ads laced with sarcasm on the third grade news doled out by todays newspapers have already becoming a viral hit on thee social media and Hindu has managed to convey its message very strongly, Stay ahead of the Times.

What is brilliant about these ads is that they have not only nullified the Times Of India campaign but have also managed to dub readers of other newspapers dumb. This might definitely prompt people to reconsider their choice of the  newspaper they read and should directly contribute to an increase in Hindu’s market share. The campaign is also made authentic because of the strong quality content that Hindu has always been serving . It would have not been possible for any other newspaper to make such claims.

Hindu – Stay Ahead Of  The Times – TVC 1 -Duggu

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Hindu – Stay Ahead Of  The Times – TVC 2 – Size Zero

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Hindu – Stay Ahead Of  The Times – TVC 3- Size Zero- Aishwarya’s baby

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So currently its Hindu – 1, TOI – 0.  While it would be interesting to see how TOI hits back at Hindu, It would definitely be a tough game to win.

Here are the print Ads by Hindu. Brilliant I say. What do you guys think?

Hindu Print Ad 1   - Malfunctions

Hindu Print Ad 2- Parties

Hindu Print Ad 3 – Page 3

UPDATE – 3rd Februrary 2012 – This is how Times Of India responded to the Hindu Campaign, by sarcastically congratulating them for their successful campaign. The print ad shown below was up in TOI’s Chennai edition.

While I am not sure how the team at WebChutney has managed to do this, its indeed a fantastic way to  virally market the movie site – DesiMartini.com. Must say, WebChutney does keep coming up with innovative  viral marketing ideas  for their clients. Some more of there popular work can be checked here. However I believe the Website’s main idea and concept  will reduce its chance of becoming a viral hit, as while browsing the website you have to disconnect from the Internet and hence use of  social media plugins is not possible. Here are a few things WebChutney can do to increase the viralness of the website-

1. A small step like having a FaceBook share or a Tweet button on the home page of the website and on the pop up that notifies you that you have been disconnected from the website  when you connect to the net , will help increase social sharing by people using the website.

2. The home page should contain social media plugins where fans can post in their favorite Rajni jokes and stories which can help to serve as the content for the website. This will help not only to increase user engagement but also help increase the content available on the website.

P.S. – If anyone has a idea how the WebChutney team has managed to make the website work without the Internet, then do share it in the comments section below. 

Lesson # 1 – Follow Your Passion Irrespective Of Failures
Although his first venture in the camera business failed miserably, Dadasaheb Phalke realised that it was due to people spreading false rumours that taking photos sucks the life out of you and not because of any lack of opportunity in the business. Seeing an English feature film for the first time, he was bewildered by seeing pictures in motion and instantaneously decided that this is what he wants to do. While he did not have the resources or the knowledge to make a film, he had the passion to make motion pictures. Being passionate about what you intend to do is most crucial to setting up your venture. Knowledge and resources can be acquired, but passion has to be ignited from within.

Lesson # 2 – Have Confidence In Your Dreams
While the movie portrays the struggles of a first time film maker, ironically Paresh Mokashi (the director of the film) had to face his share of struggles in making Harishchandrachi Factory. But his confidence in his dream made him overcome all problems. When no producer was ready to produce the film in Marathi, Paresh mortgaged his home and decided to make the film on his own money. This bears resemblance to Dadasaheb mortgaging his wife’s jewels to make his first film. When you have confidence in your dreams, problems are nothing but milestones in your journey.

Lesson # 3 – A Desire For Continuous Learning
Dadasaheb sat for hours watching English cinema on screens in his town to try and learn the art of making films. However he realised that watching films alone is not enough and if he had to learn the art of making films, he would have to go and learn it at London. Without having any contacts or acquaintances in London, but with the burning desire to learn, he left for London to study cinema. It was this quest for knowledge which gave him the confidence to walk into a Motion Pictures office in London and say, “I am Dadasaheb Phalke and I want to make a motion picture. Will you help me?”. As entrepreneurs you need to have this constant quest for learning everything related to your business. As long as this desire is present within you, success would not be very far. When you think you have learnt everything, then it is time to move on to something new.

Entrepreneurship lessons from Harishchandrachi Factory 

Lesson # 4 – Gaining Investor Confidence Through Demonstration Of Your Ability
While you may be passionate and confident about your dream venture, investors will look at your venture with scepticism. Is he actually capable of doing this? Is it even possible to do this? Are some questions that will be thriving in their minds. As Dadasaheb says in the movie – “Chamtkaara Shivay Namaskar Nahin” (if you do not perform miracles no one will salute you). To gain confidence of investors and friends he produces a short film that shows the growth of a bean seed to a plant. Seeing that Dadasaheb in fact had the capability to make a motion film, he managed to win the support of his friends and investors were ready to give him money to make the film. So while you may have a mountainous project in mind, it is important you at least develop a mole hill first to show that you actually have the capability to build a mountain.

Lesson # 5 – Be Ready To Get Your Hand Dirty
Midway through the shooting when the camera stops working, Dadasaheb says to his friend – its time to open up the instruction manual. As entrepreneurs, it is extremely important to get your hands dirty, learn things the hard way and make things work. You will not have enough money in the startup phase to get specialist help, so be ready to learn, be ready to fail and be ready to get your hands dirty.

Second part coming in a while In the meanwhile do catch the movie.

Here is a theatrical trailer of the film Harishchandrachi Factory 

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Mexico has shown great resilience despite being badly hit by the financial crisis of 2008 (its economy shrank by 6.1% during this period), last year its economy grew by 5.4%. While Brazil has overtaken Mexico in terms of GDP in Latin America, Mexico is soon catching up. Mexico is currently the third highest exporter ($400 billion in 2010) to America, the World Bank also ranks Mexico as the easiest place in Latin America to do business. Mexico also has the highest per capita income amongst the BRIC nations (excluding Russia). Also the low cost advantage of China is rapidly dwindling and industries which once shifted to China from Mexico are moving back to Mexico. One major advantage that Mexico has is its proximity to America, which gives it a transportation cost benefit compared to other emerging economies like China and India. Also a recent NAFTA ruling in favour of Mexico, which America had been violating since 1994, will cut Mexican exporters’ shipping costs by 15%, further helping the Mexican economy.  The rise of first generation Mexican entrepreneurs like Carlos Slim, who is now the richest person in the World, makes one look optimistically towards the future.

However on the gloomier side – the unemployment rate is unlikely to reach the pre-recession mark of 4.1% before 2018 and as of now 46.2% of Mexico’s population lies below the poverty line. The continuous news stories of drug mafia and reports of violence and crime are also responsible for a lower than expected growth of Mexico. Also with 1/3rd of its GDP coming from exports – mainly to America, Mexico is highly dependent on a single country and is looking to increase its exports to other emerging economies, in order to diversify its export risk. Also the highly monopolistic nature of its industries (like telecommunications) has caused higher prices, leading to poorer people in the economy not having access to these services. Banking, medicine, transport are the other necessary service industries that have high costs due to the highly uncompetitive nature of these industries. Economic and policy reforms are needed in these industries, if a brighter future for Mexico is to be envisaged.

Here we need to observe that, countries which continue to compete on their low cost advantage – do not have a sustainable growth strategy. This can be seen with countries like China, which once attracted industries with their low cost advantage are now seeing departure of these industries. This is because with passage of time, increase in the wage and operational cost in China, is no longer making it an attractive destination for investment. Mexico has been criticised for not opening its doors to foreign players, but I believe that this is actually one of Mexico’s strength. The country is trying to build its internal industries, so that when it becomes a totally open economy, its local industries will have the potential and financial strength to compete with global players. This is something that other emerging economies have failed to do – they have opened up their markets without first strengthening the foundations of their own markets. However there are some problems in Mexico’s economy too –

• Mexico has not fostered and created enough number of domestic players within every industry. Thus this has led to monopolistic nature of the markets. The lack of sufficient players means growing cartelisation and lesser competition for existing players – which has resulted in these players not innovating to a large extent.
• The limited choice, due to lack of players also means exploitation of the masses by the monopolist companies.

With a presidential election in 2012, political parties are looking at creating competitive policies and economic reforms which are necessary to deliver any real improvement in the quality of life for the average Mexican: job creation, middle class expansion, expanded social services, poverty reduction and reduced inequality. This if done, will help drive internal competition in the market and benefit Mexico as a whole.

I would also like to throw light on America’s outward behaviour of signing treaties but not respecting them. The North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA), introduced in 1994, promised Mexican and American lorry-drivers the right to roam freely in the other’s border states by 1995 and nationwide by 2000. But this has not been respected by America, and Mexican lorries are not allowed to drive into America. This, coupled with high oil prices has hurt Mexico’s export industry as transportation costs have increased. Till 2009, the deal remained on paper, maybe because the United States had organised a bail-out worth $50 billion following Mexico’s 1994 currency crunch, and Mexico did not want to spoil relationships with its neighbour. But in 2009, Mexico finally retaliated and complained to NAFTA, the NAFTA ruling which went in favour of Mexico, will be seen as an example and Mexico is likely to continue to retaliate in case America continues to break the rules.

The drug and arms violence which is causing the Mexican economy to grow more slowly than desired is financed greatly by the Americans. This hints at the covert actions by the developed nations to prevent charging of developing economies. Ernesto Cordero, the finance minister, has estimated that the violence knocks about a percentage point off Mexico’s annual growth rate.

There is also a feeling that Mexico is gradually looking at opening up its economy with entry of players like Walmart being a starting point. This might well be due to pressure put by the developed nations. However total opening up of the economy, especially during the current times when a recession seems to be looming, will not be a good move by the Mexican Government.

Let me conclude by stating some steps which if taken, might make Mexico move towards a charged economy –

1. Focus on innovation leadership, rather than on low cost leadership. As seen in the case of China, low cost is not a sustainable growth strategy.
2. Continue diversifying its exports and concentrate on increasing exports to other emerging economies and reducing its dependency on America as a major export hub.
3. Reduce the crime rates and drug cartels – by enforcing stricter laws. This will help further increase foreign investments in the nation.  However this is something that the Government alone cannot do and it needs to gather public support as well for this to happen.
4. Economic reforms and policies are needed to increase internal competition and break the current monopolistic nature of its industries. This is necessary to drive innovation by market players and also in order to make services available to the public at a lower cost. Thus leading to a more equitable economy.
5. While there would undoubtedly be pressures from the developed nations for Mexico to open up its economy, the Mexico Government, should not completely open up its economy until the above 4 steps have been incorporated.

The next few years are critical, as depending on what measures the Mexico Government and industry players take, will determine whether the Mexican Desert will Bloom.

Signing off, with a hope for a brighter and happier future.

References

http://www.economist.com/node/21526899

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=64307579&site=bsi-live

1. Focus on Activities Higher In The Value Chain

IT players are looking at strategic partnerships with clients rather than small off shoring contracts. Also concentration is on doing more consulting work, creating IT strategy roadmaps for organisations and full integrated solutions. Amongst major Indian IT vendors, Cognizant Technology Solutions is one up in this area, as it has made early inroads into Management Consulting by recruiting a high talent pool in this area for the past few years.

2. Telecommunications and Education Sector Will Be The Next Big Thing

With focus of many developing economies in increasing their communications infrastructure and developing a strong telecommunications backbone for the growth of their economy, Telecommunications seems to be the next big thing after the Banking and Financial services sector. Telecommunication services with the advent of LTE technology many nations will expand to providing financial, social services and not just be restricted to simple communications. The IT sector will have to focus on partnering with major telecommunication companies in helping them achieve their vision. Mobile communications will be embedded with social computing and the internet and mobile services would be integrated on one platform. Also education services and the use of Information and Communication technology in fostering its growth and proliferation will be vital.

3. SaaS and SOA architecture Would Be In Demand

With today’s fast, dynamic agile market – Software as A Service and Service Oriented Architecture – will be the frameworks most commonly used. These frameworks support easy, faster integration and increase maintainability and agility of the business systems. Thus these architectures would be most used in the IT industry.

4. Investments In R&D and New Technologies

Indian companies are now trying to adopt a culture that encourages innovation, embrace new trends such as Green IT, and deliver solutions that are focused on re-engineering and transformation. India is emerging as a leading Innovation hub with increasing number of patents being filed and granted from India. Tata Consultancy Services has its Innovation Labs to create next gen products and solutions that will help their global customers. Wipro’s strategic service centres also concentrate on emerging technologies – like cloud computing, Green IT and social computing.

5. Focus On Emerging Economies

The IT industry has learnt it the hard way that focussing on only the US market would not be a sustainable strategy. Therefore IT players have started focussing their attention on the high velocity markets –EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asia) and Latin America. Increasing investments are being made in setting up delivery centres in these emerging markets. The IT companies are likely to use an inorganic growth strategy to increase and expand through acquisitions in this region.

So how do you see IT players act in this transformation stage, what would be the major trends and strategies used by IT companies to succeed in this high competition market?

1. Talk less and do more. After all actions speak louder than words.

So putting my first resolution to immediate practice, have decided to share the rest of the resolutions only after I am on the verge of completing them. The resolutions will surely demand a lot of self control and determination to complete, lets see if I am game for it.

1. You Love It But You Are Not Great At It: I strongly believe that, If You Love Something, You Will Be Great At It and vice versa. But what is important to note here is that you need to love the skills associated with your job and not just the perks and benefits associated with it.  If you suck at Finance and love the perks associated with Investment Banking, then surely you are surely not going to be great at the job. But if you love the skills associated with the job, then in a matter of your time you will surely master those skills and will stand out from the crowd. This is where Dorie goes wrong when she takes the example of Scott who likes the glamor associated with the media job but did not have writing skills which were the core skills needed for doing the job.
2. You Are Skilled At Your Passion But Hate The Work That Surrounds It – I believe that if you are good at your core tasks then doing the secondary and tertiary tasks will not bother you much and with times as you grow up the organization chain, you can very well delegate the secondary and tertiary tasks that you do not enjoy, to your team members. The core emphasis hence should be loving the core skill of a job. As a HR you will have to do a lot of documentation, follow up with managers, etc. You may very well not like these secondary tasks. But dealing with people, working on organizational structures, balance scorecards, compensation and talent development – these would form your core tasks. If you love these core tasks of your job, then you would surely have found the perfect dream job for yourself. 
3. You Are too Emotionally Attached - You spend half your life  at your work place. In today’s work life, your office is like your first home and your actual home becomes secondary. So irrespective of whether you love or hate your job, eventually you will end up being attached to it. It’s like a forceful arranged marriage, initially you might detest the sight of your partner, but 10 years down the line, you are sure to get attached to your partner. So if at the end of the day you are going to be attached to the job, what harm is it to love it from the very beginning?
4. No one will pay for it- If you do something you love, you will be good at it and if you continue to pursue the skill, nurture, develop and strengthen your skill, there will surely be good value for it (monetary as well as satisfaction) at the end of the day. Examples are too many about how people have pursued their hobbies and made careers out of it. Rashmi Bansal (who started a youth magazine JAM Mag cultivating a hobby for writing and now having two best seller books to her name), John Chow (founder of johnchow.com, who makes millions just by following is hobby for blogging),  Kalyan Verma ( who left a dream job at Yahoo to become a successful wildlife photographer). If you do something well and with passion, the results will show. What you need is just some patience.

On a side note : What do you guys think, should one do what one loves or one that gives him the love of his social circle. Another interesting point of discussion, considering the number of careers being taken not out of one’s love/passion for it but just to make one’s  family happy, boast in front of friends, and increase one’s self esteem.

With 10′s of online book stores, can one seriously start comparing books across all book stores just to save a few bucks. I believe after spending 30 minutes in selecting a book, you will end up losing all the interest in buying a book. But when you buy a book and then realise you were getting the same book at a lower price someplace else, your post buyer cognitive dissonance is going to be pretty much high. So how do you save time and also get the best book deals online, that would help you save enough to buy a sea facing Marine Drive apartment. Here’s the solution : India Book Store . This website helps you compare prices across all major online book stores in India and helps you choose the best deal. So happy reading and happy saving to all my readers

Thanks to Aseem for the information.

Ask Rajesh, an IT professional working in Tata Consultancy, one thing that he recalls about Mumbai and the answer would come in a flash, the Mumbai Dabbawallas. Fresh home food delivered at your office everyday at the exact time. No question of any delay, satisfaction guaranteed.

Like Rajesh, there are thousands of satisfied customers who would speak volumes on the efficiency of the Dabbawallas. It is not for nothing that they have been rated  “Six Sigma” by the Forbes magazine. One may question: What is the big deal in transporting dabbas from one place to another? What is the big hype about this all? If you too have this question tinkering with your grey cells then consider this:

1. Dabbawallas serve an ever-growing customer base of 350,000.
2. The Dabbawallas are ISO 9001 certified.
3. Only 1 error caused in 600,000 deliveries. This has resulted them in achieving the six-sigma status.
4. To top it all the dabba system is not managed by a pass out from an Ivy League school. However, people who are mostly illiterate run it.

It is no secret that supply chain management has moved out of the shadows when it comes to business strategy. Organizations that once focused primarily on distribution networks, profit differentiation and improved marketing for their success have now embraced integrated supply chain management as a pivotal strategy component for growth and profitability in the global economy.

The supply chain management system that the Dabbawallas have devised and the effectiveness with which they have been managing it for the last 125+ years is something that modern businesses of today can learn a pointer or two from.

The Dabbawalla’s Supply Chain

Fig 1 : The Supply Chain Of Dabbawallas

In the dabbawalla’s supply chain system, dabba-gatherers pick up the lunches from various households (Customer Source) which are then transported – via bicycle – to railway stations, where they are bucketed-marked by destination, and placed on the train. When they reach their destination, dabbawallas grab their buckets and get them to the office workers (Customer Destination) who ordered them. After a few hours from delivery, the dabbawallas start the reverse (collection) process, which involves collection of the tiffins from the offices and delivering it back to the place from where they had collected it (Customer Source).

What Modern Businesses Can Learn From  Dabbawallas SCM Practices

1)      Distribution Network Configuration: This is a basic requirement of SCM and determines the success of the entire supply model. The core components being number, suppliers, warehouses and human resource management.

In case of dabbawallas, they have a very efficient management of the above core requirements. They divide the human resource available with them as per the workload, which is the same for every worker (around 35 tiffins) and the number of employees’ increase with the increase in the work- load. Wherein they have a policy that an employee cannot move out without getting a replacement. This prevents hampering of the flow of work.

They segregate the source for the collection as per the area and location so that it is easier for the assigned worker to collect them in the least time and then they get the tiffins to the warehouses, which stand to be the source stations for their operation where they are well accumulated and managed. All the tiffins are well marked in a typical manner, which represents all the information right from the source to delivery address, and the warehouse it needs to be assigned to for delivery (the stations).  This gives an excellent model for the management of warehouse and inventory. There again, they are accumulated in the second warehouse (the destination station) where the same process is used to segregate the boxes as per the destination station wherein the same codes used in the boxes are used.

This shows the level of management and coding that they employ without any use of external technocratic systems. In today’s world of IT, the dabbawallas provide an important lesson to businesses that it is not necessary to have a high end IT system or technical tracking of inventory to build an effective supply chain. After all, without any technology entities in their supply chain the dabbawallas have managed a Six Sigma level. So just because your competitor is investing millions into building an IT system to improve their supply chain, you need not blindly splurge money into the same. While effective use of IT is important, what is more important is having a proper distribution network

2) Distribution Strategy: This is again a vital part in supply chain and in case of dabbawalla’s they have a very effective strategy, which needs to be learnt . They have a well-managed segregation system where the boxes are segregated in the destination station as per the location of delivery and then assigned to the particular delivery people. The arrangement is in such a manner that all the workers are comfortably equipped so as to ensure timely delivery which they promise ( three hours). In some regions where the number is more than usual, they use a bigger carrier with multiple workers to transfer them. Hence, this is so well managed that even though the system may have error in allocation but their expertise never lets a single mistake happen. The entire system used by them is manmade and with no further investment as they generally use wooden racks for the entire transport. Bicycles and wooden carts, which do not have any investments, are used in delivery. Thus, the distribution costs are saved. The transport is for longer distances between the source and the destination, which is generally covered in local trains, which has the minimum cost for the transport that can be availed also with the minimum time consumption so here also there is effective saving.

Thus, it can be seen that at every step in the supply chain, dabbawallas use the most efficient and effective means of transportation. This is done in such a way that operation costs are kept to a minimum and at the same time the delivery time is not compromised upon. Thus effective management of means of transport and carriage is a major differentiator for any business and would help in obtaining better profits viz a viz competition.

Fig 2 : The Dabbawalla Distribution System