Conclusion

1. The dabbawala’s success lies in the cultural significance of their service. The
dabbawalas provide home cooked food to workers in metropolitan Mumbai,
which is a melting pot of many cultures with each culture having its own
culinary preferences.
2. Employee dedication and sense of organizational community have also helped
in maintaining the six-sigma service levels. Having employees as partners in
the business increases their dedication towards achieving organizational
objectives as the end-month salary is dependent on the efforts of every
individual in the team.
3. Their practice of hiring based on recommendations from existing members
means that all employees have a similar culture and code of conduct thus
easing managerial duties and increasing efficiency.
4. While the dabbawala’s practices have facilitated their success, they have also
hindered their potential expansion to other regions where their services may be
needed.
5. Increased employee homogeneity results in decreased organizational
innovation that is the current scenario with the Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers
Association.
6. They have focused their hiring on the originating villages of existing members
who have low educational attainments thus limiting their diversification into
other auxiliary fields such as management and accounting.
7. This has also limited their potential to adapt to a changing business
environment.
Suggestions

1. The dabbawalas should work to increase the general educational attainment of

their members. This can be done through additional training programs that
would teach them additional skills such as management and accounting.
2. An increase in education would also help in acquiring additional skills that
would be beneficial to the organization such as technology use.
3. On a broader scale, an increase in education would also help in reducing the
poverty levels in the country, as the current generation of dabbawalas would
then have an opportunity to improve the education of their relatives in the
villages, which is a more sustainable approach to poverty reduction as
compared to simply giving employment.
4. The dabbawalas should also change their hiring practices to reflect the
changing times. Traditionally, the dabbawalas have mainly recruited from the
region of Pune whose main residents are subsistence farmers. Since this region
is characterized by above average poverty levels, children have limited
funding to pursue their studies and becoming dabbawalas for an average
monthly salary of Rs 5000-8000.
5. A change in managerial attitude is necessary in order for the dabbawala to
implement the recommended changes. As past research shows, the managerial
attitude has the greatest influence on the employee expectations and code of
conduct.
6. Currently, the dabbawala’s President, Mr. Medge, sees no need for employee
diversification or a change in organizational strategy and thus, this is the
commonly accepted attitude among the employees. However, it has stagnated
their operations, as the dabbawalas are currently unable to significantly
increase their client base, which has also resulted in a relatively unchanging
workforce. Therefore, changing the managerial attitude is necessary for
spurring a change among the employees.
7. This recommendation is towards the government, who can collaborate with
the dabbawala organization to reduce unemployment and poverty levels while
also providing healthier alternatives for city workers. The government can aid
the dabbawala organization in expanding their operations to other cities
through providing educational opportunities and providing reliable transport
 infrastructure. As shown from the analysis above, the major strength of the
dabbawala organization is the extensive railway infrastructure that provides a
low-cost solution to freight transportation. Without this railway system, they
would incur similar costs to other food distribution systems such as
McDonalds. Therefore, for effective and rapid expansion to other cities, the
government can aid through providing reliable freight transport infrastructure.
8. This is towards researchers who will conduct future studies on the dabbawalas.
During the course of this research, I mainly utilized qualitative data from prior
case studies on the dabbawala due to time and financial limitations. Therefore,
future researchers with adequate resources should conduct intensive
quantitative studies that would help in providing definitive statistics about the
dabbawala organization.