Tuesday 10 / June / 2025
Muscat: A top researcher who specialises in ensuring people get the best out of delivery services has said that Oman Post showing its employees they are valued will help in the company becoming a success in the future.
Dr Pawan Agrawal, who did his PhD on the Dabbawalla lunchbox delivery system in Mumbai, was recently invited to the Oman Post Forum 2018 to share his views on how the company could benefit from the system the Dabbawallas had in place.
“Success depends on recruitment,” he told Times of Oman. “When a recruitment is done, the company takes in the new recruit on a guarantee that (s)he will do well, and gives that person training until he/she is one of the members of the company. If you bring a new member into the family, you must make sure that this person does not feel like he/she is apart from the rest of the family.”
“Similarly, a leader must believe that he is responsible for the people under him, and train them accordingly,” added Agrawal. “If Oman Post or any other organisation does this, then I think they will do well, because once you make errors, it could ruin your work.”
Agrawal has been giving talks on the lessons that delivery companies can learn from the Dabbawallas for nearly 20 years. Mumbai’s famed lunch delivery system was set up in 1890, where groups of local delivery men take lunchboxes from homes and deliver them to workers in the city before collecting them back in the afternoon.
The Dabbawallas have managed to keep costs down to a minimum and still achieve maximum success, having made less that one mistaken delivery for every six million lunchboxes they carry.
“It is not amazing, but rather simple,” said Agrawal. “These people are not working for money, but working for work. They feel that if they work, they will get money, and with that money, they can keep their families happy. They want to work passionately. This system has been running for 127 years, and the secret of this is that every individual feels he is the owner of his work.”
He added, “For example, if they forget to deliver a single tiffin box in which a customer’s wife has put medicine for the husband, the dabbawalla feels he is responsible. They are not afraid of making mistakes, but they know they cannot make them. Their affection to their work is what keeps
them going.”
Agrawal said that although e-commerce industries had now established themselves in the market, possibly taking away some of the functions that postal services did, it was important to remember that postal organisations were in no way dated, because there are still many who rely on it for essential matters.
“It matters, I think, and a postal service should continue,” he explained. “It is not easy to do so, but you cannot call the setting up of a postal service expensive, because some things don’t have much to do with money or physical appearance. A postal service is really important. Yes, it may not be important to everyone, but it is vital for a lot of people.”
“Across the world, a postal service is badly needed, because although we have instant messaging and online contact, the physical delivery of goods is still required,” he added.
He added, though, that the challenges postal services such as Oman Post faced in terms of setting up and recruitment would be difficult, because today’s youth may not be as familiar with or as enthusiastic about working for a postal service.
“Establishing a postal service in today’s e-commerce world is difficult, because today’s youth may not want to work in this sector,” said Agrawal. “In today’s era, to see how Oman Post is handling work is amazing, and in the last three years, they have proved to be quite good at what they do. Because of the model of work that Oman Post has, I think they will be able to overcome the challenges they face in the future.”
“The main challenge here will be cost,” he added. “One needs to look at how much cost they will be able to bear to provide maximum benefit to customers. There is also no alternative, unfortunately, to the weather here, because it is understandably hot, but work needs to be done. At Oman Post, every individual should work with the same passion, because if some people don’t work, then the others will also not feel like doing it. There needs to be that feeling across employees, where they are the pillars of the organisation.”
