DABBAWALAS

The Management (406) class discussion on the 25 April about the dabbawalas interested me. My curiosity started working toward knowing more about them.
Dabbawala is an Indian word. Dabba means lunch boxes, and Wala means one who carries. Dabbawala is a person in India whose job is to deliver lunch boxes from homes to offices, and return them back again. How did it start? Why it is only in India?
Answers.com says that “The dabbawala originated when India was under British rule: many British people who came to the colony didn't like the local food, so a service was set up to bring lunch to these people in their workplace straight from their home. Nowadays, Indian businessmen are the main customers for the dabbawalas”
On the right is a picture of working dabbawalas taken during a working day.
The Indian reluctant to fast food could be the reason behind the survival of this service. The article “Mumbai’s amazing dabbawalas” said that tiffins are collected at 9:00 am and delivered at 12:30 pm. This means that the food was cooked before 9:00 am. There is a four hour gap between the cooking time and eating time which makes the food not fresh. Moreover, it is impossible for the food to be still warm after four hours. I personally would prefer to have warm and fresh served lunch from the closest restaurant than having a four hour old cooked lunch but the Indians may prefer the opposite.

DNRD 2

The VRIO framework

1. The question of Value:
To answer this question, we ask our selves; did the resource and capability reduce a firm’s cost or increase its revenue compared to what would have been the case if this firm did not possess them? If we take the electronic visa resource and ignored the rest, the answer turns out to be yes. This resource increased revenue. The process of applying a visa shifted from the traditional way where you have to go all the way to DNRD to an electronic way where you can apply at the office. This will attract more people to apply to DNRD and not any other immigration offices within the UAE such as Sharjah immigration or Ajman immigration. Therefore, we can say that this resource is valuable.
2. The question of rareness:
Who are competing with DNRD? It’s the other six Emirates’ immigration offices. When a person would like to visit UAE, he has the choice to apply a visa from any of the seven immigration offices in the UAE. Unfortunately, the other six Emirates immigration offices do not issue electronic visas. As I mentioned in the previous blog that Dubai is the only Emirates that implemented the electronic visa. Therefore we can say that this resource is a rare one.
3. The question of Imitability:
The electronic visa resource is imitable and should be imitated. It is true that the seven Emirates immigration offices compete against each other in the form of who can attract more tourists, but at the end, they should all provide a better quality service because this is to the benefit of the country. There are two forms of imitating, and they are direct duplication and substitution. I think the other six Emirates immigration offices should imitate this resource using direct duplication because substitution might be costly. There could be disadvantage in imitating, for example, casual ambiguity and patents. If DNRD cooperates, I think these disadvantages can be eliminated.
4. The question of Organization:
The resource of electronic visa is organized effectively and efficiently. The process starts when the client fills an online application. Then the client submits the application and the officer receives it. The officer approves the request if the client is applicable to enter the country. Then the client receives the approval (the visa) and can print it if hard copy is needed. This process takes less than ten minutes. Errors are almost impossible in this process. This process is well organizes and relish DNRD a competitive advantage at least for sometime.

DNRD

DNRD stand for Department of Naturalization and residency of Dubai, also known as Dubai Immigration. DNRD was established since 1971 to provide mainly permit for expatriate entries. I joined DNRD in 2001 strait after high school. I’ve spent the summer at the finance department and then moved to the airport department because it is closer to AUS.
In this blog I will analyze DNRD according to Barney’s resource based view. These resources are divided in to four categories and they are:
1) Financial Capital: DNRD relish huge amount of revenues generated from selling permit fees against a very low cost which is mostly labor only. Since DNRD does not publish any financial statements, its net income is unknown to public. Nevertheless, I estimated that the net income, after meeting all kinds of expenses, to be around $8 billion per year. This massive increasing net income is then transferred to the government.
2) Physical Capital: DNRD partnered with Datel to provide a website where people can apply visa permits electronically. This resource and competency is distinguished since Dubai is the only Emirates that implemented the electronic visa. On the other hand, the other Emirates like sharjah, Ajman and so on, did not implement yet. The Head Office of DNRD has a vital location for the reason that it is located in the middle of Dubai where it is easy to reach. There are other sections of the DNRD where they are located around Dubai and in neighboring areas. These are Dubai Airport Passports Section, Rashid Port Passports Section, Shindegah Port Passports Section, Jebel Ali Port Passports Section and Hatta Passports Section.
3) Human Capital: DNRD is very poor when it comes to human capital resource. Most of the people are uneducated. For example, the department I work for is made up of 40 employees and three of them only are high school graduates. Out of those three only one made it to college and that person is me. Another Example is the website itself, CLICK HERE, to see the funny F & Q. DNRD lacks orientation and training programs where most of the employees do not know what happens in the other department and I’m one of them. Employees get to know their job by observing other employees instead of special training programs.
4) Organizational Capital: DNRD is strictly centralized where employees follow the rules and only the rules that have been set by top level managers. The only time an employee is allowed to break the rules is when he receives a message from top level management to do so. The formal reporting structure is organized in such a way that you can only submit a written request or complain to your manager only and not someone else. Your manager is then responsible to report it to top level managers.

My next blog will be using the VRIO framework to analyze DNRD resources and capabilities.

I partially disagree with what BILL GLAUBER said in “Seniors At Senior Level”. I’m a 22 years old undergraduate student who will get in to workplace in couple of years. Couple of years after work, my ambition is to be a CFO in one of the biggest companies in the world. If seniors are still around their, me other young people will not have the patient to wait for senior to passaway.
I think after a person reaches 60 he/she must retire. I don’t think that they will still be efficient anymore. In the article, Erickson said that senior workers at Wal-Mart and Home Depot can help a customer select the right tool. But ,can they lift a 50 kg tool? What if that customer is aging between 20 to 25? Can seniors match the taste of young people? Is the worker knowledgeable with the new technology? Most probably the answer to these questions are “no”. Most seniors will be conservative in their choice. They will face difficulties in adapting any changes. For example, how many people aged above 65 can use a computer? A very few offcourse.
A chance should be given to the young graduates who are ready to implement what they have studied. Young people have the energy to work hard and invent new things. They can learn and adapt to changes better than seniors. Unfortunately, there will be time when these young people will reach 60’s and it’s time to retire. A retired persons can work, but not at senior levels.

We live on one earth, but we are divided into groups. Each group has beliefs or religions and each religion has a sub-religion, but there are also people who don’t have a religion. People who have a religion respect and worship it. They wouldn’t be happy if someone tries to offend it. Even the offender wouldn’t be pleased if some insult his religion no matter what was his belief. Jyllands-Posten depicting the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in an offensive way which led the Muslims to boycott Danish products. This boycott is destroying the Danish economy, as a Danish website says in red big letters “Danish businesses say they're losing more than one (m) million dollars a day because of a boycott in response to cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.”(1) It also says “It is hurting Denmark”(1). These are acknowledgments from the Danish people. On the other hand, the Arabs say Denmark loses more than 25 million dollars a day. It is very difficult to calculate the lose but for sure there is huge loses. These loses isn’t the cause of the Danish manufacturer who export to the world, instead it’s the fault of a mere person who insulted 1.3 billion Muslim. So how should the Manufacturers respond to these loses? Applying Hamel’s Business Concept Innovation framework to this issue, I think “Fulfillment and Support” under Customer Interface will quietly fit. A firm should build support and fulfillment to the benefit of their customers. They should reach the customer in a way that suit him to show him that yes we respect you and respect what you belief. In order for the Danish manufacturer to stay in business they should support their customer. They should send an official apology to the Muslims and donate some money to promote their religion. For example, building couples of Mosques in Denmark and Muslim’s countries. This reaction will cost less than one million dollars which is better than keep losing thousands of millions. The Muslims will see the good faith of the manufacturers and obviously will stop the boycott.

(1) http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/

Mohammed Abdulla Alqaraiban @00005387

In the article “Google Is Destined To Fail In China”, Google is facing threats of entry. This threats of entry depends on the barrier to entry of government policy. The chinees government is prohibiting Google from entering the chinees internet market because the chinees government historically think that the forienger are here to make the country poorer. Other companies like Lycos and Netscape tried but unfortunatly they couldn’t do much.
China has the largest population on earth and if Google entered it could gain market share. Google’s cost is related to the number of customers. Google needs to attract as much customers as possible to cover its fixed cost and generate profits. Sohu, Sina and Netease are chinees rival internet companies who developed a symbiotic relationship. These compamies will stand as a barrier to entry for Google and they might competed harshly against Google.
Another barrier is that Google can’t compete against competitor who can perform practices that is normal in China but unethical in America. Google must act ethical in all its practices and should follow the American laws such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act where as other competitor can compete unethically without any law that prohibit.

Test Post

Test Post for MGT 406 at AUS