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The global COVID-19 pandemic cannot go unnoticed for the dabbawalas, which is a system of lunchbox delivery and return services for India’s employees. Before the pandemic and lockdown policies, thousands of dabbawalas served Mumbai citizens due to their well-considered system of order picking, color coding, and bicycle/train delivery (Sadhana Centre for Management & Leadership Development (SCMLD), 2016). To address the increasing proportion of citizens working from home and the resulting changes affecting the demand for dabbas, the dabbawalas should implement multiple changes to operations aimed at offering more flexibility. Some recommended changes are continuing to go digital, adding new services, and offering programs to make services more affordable and, therefore, attractive for customers, including those working from home.
The first operational change enabling dabbawala delivery organizations to survive and prepare for future crises is increasing their digital presence. In 2020, after launching an official website, all dabbawala deliveries became represented online (Lal, 2021). Changing the operations in a way to offer more flexibility to clients in terms of order placing and payment options could be helpful to recover from the current situation and reach as many prospective customers as possible. The opportunities include online orders, order-taking call centers, and user-friendly mobile applications that facilitate order placing. Another goal to pursue is making a wide range of online payment services available to clients, which would enable each customer to choose the most appropriate online payment method. This would help dabbawala deliveries to reduce the risks of repelling prospective clients.
The next proposed change to the pre-pandemic dabbawala system is altering the offer and increasing the proportion of alternative services that dabbawalas can provide aside from meal delivery. Grocery home delivery can be a promising opportunity for further development given the increasing number of citizens that are urged to stay home but may prefer to cook themselves. Another opportunity that has been partially realized is the provision of electronic registration services (Lal, 2021). Proceeding with this option, including marriage and property lease agreement registration services, can support the dabbawala system’s ability to generate revenues and keep as many jobs as possible while also creating new ones.
Finally, other promising interventions include developing dabbawala-restaurant partnerships and offering subscriptions to make dabbawala services a more affordable and attractive alternative to cooking at home. Partnering with popular restaurants that wish to outsource their delivery services and offering discounts is a helpful opportunity (Lal, 2021). Next, stimulating customers’ purchasing decisions by offering subscription opportunities could support the dabbawala system in meeting the needs of younger clients working from home. Specifically, regular customers should get special discounts or use a reward system, including the opportunity to use referral links and collect bonus points to pay for further orders, thus getting additional discounts. The referral marketing program would enable long-standing customers to encourage their friends and acquaintances to make orders and get bonus points for each new client that they invite. With dabbawala food delivery services’ increasing digital presence, making such changes should not be a challenging task.
Reference List
Lal, N. (2021) ‘Mumbai’s ‘dabbawalas’ go digital to beat COVID-19’, Nikkei Asia. Web.
Sadhana Centre for Management & Leadership Development (SCMLD) (2016) Bombay dabbawalas – ‘small people, great work.’ Web.
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