Winter is over, but Summer is so far away..

Spring is finally here to greet us. Well! Not exactly..I have been waiting from past three weeks to do the first thing in my 'To do list for summer', which is to hike Mount Monandock. Its been raining incessantly and I am left with no choice than to just sit at home or do some indoor activities during the weekends. It reminds me of Indian monsoon season.

Oh man!! The weather in New England is just unpredictable. When I got up in the morning, it was sunny and I was glad that the wait is finally over. But, by noon the clouds came back and it started raining. I have nothing else to do and so I thought I will vent out my frustration in my blog.

I am stuck at home with the TV and I have already seen my favorite Shakira & Wyclef's 'Hips Don't Lie' video thrice.
"I never really knew that she could dance like this. She makes a man want to speak Spanish. Como se llama, bonita, mi casa, su casa"
Not just Wyclef, even I am amazed by her dance.

I saw Mission Impossible:3 this weekend. The movie fell short of my expectations. I have been seeing a new English movie every weekend from past 7 weeks. I feel that I am on my way to setting a record.

So, while it drizzle, rain and pour all day, I will try to finish the book 'A Million Little Pieces'.

Winter is over, but Summer is so far away.....

Mumbai Dabbawallas - An amazing story

I recently attended the "Mumbai dabbawallas" discussion at EMC. I was just amazed to learn that Forbes magazine gave the Mumbai dabbawallas a Six Sigma performance rating, or a 99.999999 percentage of correctness — which means one error in six million transactions.
How can some 4,000 dabbawallas who pick up more than 100,000 lunches at homes in Mumbai achieve six sigma?? Its just incredible, but true. The whole process of picks up lunches, transporting and delivering them is a very complicated system of working, which is made possible(very successful, infact) by human ingenuity and supportive social arrangements. They just prove that you don't need computers, information technology and other forms of technology to make a complicated system work.

Making the dabbawallas’ success even more impressive is the fact that Mumbai is continually growing and becoming more congested. Yet, the dabbawallas deliver lunches to the right person at the right time.

Now a days, in the midst of implementing technology and IT, basic principles in people management, sustainable relationship development and customer satisfaction have lost their meaning. Being a Oracle CRM guy, the most enduring lesson I learnt was to put the customer ahead of everything else and technology is not the only way to solve complex problems.

At the end of the discussion, i could't stop smiling at the fact that billion dollar US companies like EMC are learning from Mumbai dabbawallas. NICE!!!
Proud of you, dabbawallas!