Dabbawala Service

Questions: 1. Taking the example of the Dabbawala service as an example, discuss the five performance objectives of an operation. 2. Why does the Dabbawalas service offer such an amazing dependability?3. What do you think are the main threats to this service? Answers: 1. Five performance goals of operations are in terms of Dabbawala service in Mumbai is described in the following: Quality: Quality of the service of Dabbawala service in Mumbai is up to the mark. It cannot be rated as high rating because there are much more scopes of improvement of the service of Dabbawalas in Mumbai. The objectives of the Dabbawala service are constantly changing in order to improve their service in Mumbai. Quality of the operations of Dabbawala will lead to the effect of costs and increases and decreases the speed. If the lunchbox delivery boy commits a mistake, then it can lead to delay of the service as well as incurring of more costs to the Dabbawalas. Effectiveness of quality service would increase to the level of speed of delivery of the Dabbas (lunchbox). Speed: Speed of the service reflects the amount of time taken by the company between the request of the customer and the delivery of the Dabbas by the Dabbawalas to the destination of delivery. Dabbawala service in Mumbai has a remarkable speed of delivery. However, due to lack of usage of technologies, sometimes delivery of the Dabbas becomes late. Dependability: Dependability of the service refers to the delivery of service as promised to the customer during the time of lodging the request of the customers. The deliverymen are dedicated to provide the committed service to their respective clients in particular offices. People usually depend on them for the lunch while they are working in their office (Oakland 2014). Flexibility: Flexibility in the service of operations illustrates the adaption of the improved process of delivery in its operational process. The Dabbawala service is not much flexible in adapting high tech processes as most of the people in the service of delivering lunch boxes to places are not literate. Apart from that, they are very poor and are not fit in scientifically improved system of the operations. It will take a lot of time to train them in the modern updated forms of operations. Cost: Operation cost is considered as the significant factor of profitability of the business and the cost of the products and services provided by the Dabbawalas to its customers. It will also result in the affordability of the customers. Dabbawala service is cheap in price hence it can be afforded by the customers. If the cost of the operations gets increased then the price of the service will also increase which can affect certain customers in availing the service within their budget (Hamta et al. 2013). 2. In terms of dependability, Dabbawala service offers an excellent dependability for the customers. The persons that are delivering the lunch boxes to the respective customers on a daily basis usually build a relationship with the particular customers. They are building a bridge of trust so that the customers can rely on the particular deliverymen. The element of trust is very important for the Dabbawala service, as the customers are assured about their quality of food and avail their lunch at time. The trust building is the core strength of the Dabbawala service in Mumbai as it reflects the hand on operations between the deliverymen and the customer. Apart from that, proper time management is considered as the key of success of the Dabbawala service in Mumbai as the people involved in the service are dedicated to commit the goals of the company (Baindur and Macrio 2013). The deliverymen are committed to keep their customers happy by delivering them their orders in time. It is the k ey to the success of the Dabbawala service in Mumbai. The hand on operations and the good behavior of the deliverymen leads to the improvement of the service level. It is seen that the office workers of different areas of Mumbai are satisfied with the particular delivery person serve their lunch to them. The satisfaction and the dependability of the customers are responsible for marketing of their service. As it is earlier mentioned that the Dabbawala service in Mumbai is not using high tech technologies in its operations and distribution channel, hence it is a very well recognized medium to increase the awareness of the service across different parts of Mumbai. Word of Mouth (WOM) promotion is most trusted form of promotion because until date most of the consumers buy things and avail service on the recommendations of their friends, relatives and other closed ones (Thomke 2012). 3. Apart from having many opportunities and factors of dependability of the Dabbawala service, many threats are there in the market of food delivery operations in Mumbai. Mumbai is a metropolitan city of India. Almost all the facilities of an urban city is available in Mumbai. People residing in Mumbai are habituated in availing all updated amenities in every field of work. Compared to the updated service, Dabbawala service still face threats, as they are not using updated forms of technologies for improving their operations in different parts of Mumbai. There are many competitors present in Mumbai for food delivery in different parts of India. There are multinational fast food chains that are not only selling their products in their company retail outlets but also they deliver their food items within a short span of time with lots of offers on availing their service (Vrat 2014). Dabbawala service is not present in the world of digital media. It is a major threat to the service of the operation. The food delivery companies of Mumbai are tech savvy in nature as the customers are using internet nowadays for most of their work being it official or household work. Use of internet and other technologies automatically fasten the process of delivery compared to Dabbawala service in Mumbai. Not only the multinational companies, but also the local companies of Mumbai are using modern technologies and forms of operation that increase the speed of the service provided to the customers. Introduction of many promotional offers also help the companies in attracting many customers who will avail their service and maintaining customer loyalty (Roncaglia 2013). References Baindur, D. and Macrio, R.M., 2013. Mumbai lunch box delivery system: A transferable benchmark in urban logistics?.Research in transportation economics,38(1), pp.110-121. Hamta, N., Ghomi, S.F., Jolai, F. and Shirazi, M.A., 2013. A hybrid PSO algorithm for a multi-objective assembly line balancing problem with flexible operation times, sequence-dependent setup times and learning effect.International Journal of Production Economics,141(1), pp.99-111. Oakland, J.S., 2014.Total quality management and operational excellence: text with cases. Routledge. Roncaglia, S., 2013.Feeding the City: Work and Food Culture of the Mumbai Dabbawalas. Open Book Publishers. Thomke, S., 2012. Mumbais Models of Service Excellence.Harvard Business Review,90, pp.121-126. Vrat, P., 2014. Systems Approach and Supply Chain Management. InMaterials Management(pp. 357-378). Springer India.