Foodpanda Vs Dabbawalla

I.INTRODUCTION

Supply chain management plays an important role in food delivery industry. Every part of the supply chain from order management to transportation should be well optimized and coordinated. In this case, there is a comparative analysis between two food delivery systems- Dabbawallas, from India and the modern day app Foodpanda, from a supply chain perspective.

Dabbawalla operates as a community to deliver fresh meals prepared in customers’ homes or small company canteens to the workplace in Mumbai, predominantly using bicycles and the railway trains, and returning the empty boxes to the worker's residence that afternoon.

Foodpanda is a corporate startup, which uses full-fledged technology oriented platform to control orders and deliveries, allowing users to select from local restaurants and place orders via its mobile applications as well as its websites in 24 countries and territories.

A few factors in the food delivery supply chain are crucial - First, offering safe, tasty and cheap food is a fundamental requirement for food-delivery industry. Hence, food sourcing and contracting, packaging and pricing are very critical, which directly affect food supply and eventually customer satisfaction. In addition, food preference should also be considered especially in a fiercely competitive market to better meet customer demand.

Second, transportation management. The purpose of transportation management is to streamline transportation network so as to eliminate time-consuming activities and cost. That is to say, a quick and accurate delivery at comparatively low costs should be managed. However, a flexible and efficient transportation network is not easy to design and maintain, which comprises a series of components such as well-trained shippers, cost control and route planning and backhauls.

Finally, something unexpected can happen during the operation of a certain supply chain no matter how perfect it is. For an example, even a heavy rain can cause a delay in delivery, affecting customer satisfaction. This exactly requires the ability of a supply chain to cope with changes. Thus, supply network should align its strategy and operation to adapt to accidents.

Since a good supply chain in food delivery industry can lead to a great increase in sales, we will further analyze the organization and process of Dabbawalla and Foodpanda, and then draw a comparison between the two. Finally, we will make a conclusion and give some recommendations.

II. DABBAWALLAS

Dabbawallas are a community in Mumbai, India that is focused on food delivery. The Dabbawallas collect lunch boxes from the people´s homes or supplying restaurants, deliver them by bicycles and trains to the work spaces and return the empty boxes back to their place of origin after the people enjoyed their food. The most interesting fact about their system is that their community already operates for more than 120 years and does not uses any modern kind of technology in the delivery process.