Jamshedpur, Oct. 26: Ensemble, one of the biggest management fairs hosted by the XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, will have a surprise panellist this year.
Raghunath Megde, the president of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Supply Charity Trust — one of Mumbai’s several dabbawallah associations — has agreed to share his entrepreneurial skills and management expertise with 400 B-school students at the festival, which begins on November 21. As many as 20 management institutions will participate in the three-day event.
Megde will share the dais with Prabhakar Valivati, the managing director of RelQ Software Private Limited and, possibly, Lalu Prasad. The railway minister has been sent an invitation, but is yet to confirm his participation.
This is the first time that a Mumbai dabbawallah will share the supply chain’s success stories and tip budding managers at XLRI.
“Dabbawallahs are one of the best examples of successful entrepreneurship. We have always focused on corporate honchos, but have never studied their competency. Not just for India, they have set an example globally for starting from scratch to develop one of the biggest supply chains,” said Akshay Sinha, secretary, external linkage cell, XLRI.
Mumbai’s dabbawallahs have been a continuous source of interest for management gurus for the efficiency of their marketing strategies and their almost inimitable customer service. Their system has hardly ever had a breakdown, though it functions without the aid of modern technology.
The success of the dabbawallahs, who, according to the Forbes Global Magazine, have been making as few as one error in six million deliveries over the past 100 years, has been studied at Harvard Business School. The Berkeley University in California teaches the logistics of dabbawallahs in their business management programmes.
Megde is expected to deliver a lecture on sustainability with the issues and challenges one has to face while developing business out of nothing.
The panel discussion is likely to be sponsored by the Aditya Birla Group (ABG) this year. The organising committee are looking forward to free interactive sessions with each of the panellists.
Ensemble (2008-09) will see at least 13 different events. One of them will be Pratyancha, a social diffusion business plan organised by the Social Initiative Group for Managerial Assistance, better known as SIGMA.
The prize money for winners at Ensemble-2008 that the will be Rs 15 lakh. Sustainability will be the main theme for every event this year.
