Abhishek Chakraborty
Akshay Narayan Hargude
ABSTRACT
The dabbawalas (tiffin carriers) of Mumbai are a unique community of around five thousand people who efficiently serve up to 2 lac (0.2 million) customers every day. They have been delivering daily lunches from homes to offices for over a century and any kind of error in their delivery process is almost negligible. They have maintained their heritage working process since the inception of the service and therefore any kind of technology has not been incorporated in their work. They are currently facing numerous business sustainability challenges such as reaching out to new customers and also in maintaining their existing customer base. In 8--10 years, the number of customers a dabbawala serves a day has reduced from 50 to around 20 now. Through our research we have understood that they will lose their current customer base soon as similar food delivery businesses with faster and better services are emerging. To empower them we introduce Dabbawala --- a mobile application that enables partnership between dabbawalas and food services around the city and directly connects them to their combined customer base. This application enables the customers to order lunch from anywhere in the city. Customer registrations and any kind of money transactions are all handled through the application. The application is also used within the Dabbawala community to manage teams and responsibilities.
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