A 125-year-old delivery network that feeds Mumbai
> “We've known this person so long we know he'll do a proper job."<p>> The delivery schedule also has built-in buffers. If a delivery is due at 13:00, the dabbawala will aim for around 12:00 [...] For every 15 to 20 dabbawalas there is also always someone on stand-by in case one of them gets delayed.<p>> At 12:45 a dabbawala races around the corner on a bike and rushes shouting into an office building. [...] The dabbawala was late by his own standards but the customer was probably never aware of the hiccup, he says.<p>> A dabbawalas’ commitment to the job is partly because it pays well – roughly 12,000 rupees (£140) a month, a good salary in India for what is essentially unskilled labour. The fame of the dabbawalas also gives the job a certain prestige.<p>> And as a cooperative all dabbawalas are equal partners with supervisors called mukadams who are elected.<p>It seems like there's no major secret here. The key to achieving such things is... surprise surprise... treating your workers fairly and paying them well so they actually give a shit about their job, and feel appreciated and proud of what they do. The same would actually translate to many other industries.<p>The food delivery startups could achieve the same if they paid their delivery drivers fairly (at the moment most don't even make <i>minimum wage</i> - compared to the dabbawalas’ "good salary") instead of pissing away their money into marketing/advertising or into someone's pocket, whether greedy investors or "engineers" to build a blockchain-based, Kubernetes-powered microservices playground.