Business lunches usually don’t differ that much from city to city. Sure, the steak may be replaced by sushi and the fork may give way to fingers, but, all in all, a lunch is a lunch.

Then there’s Mumbai, India. Here, it’s not the business lunch itself that’s unique. It’s the delivery system. Thanks to horrific traffic that leaves some residents on the road and rails for up to four hours a day, lunch at the office means lunch in the office. But there’s no brownbagging it in this city of 16 million. Every day, more than 4,000 deliverymen, called dabbawallahs, whisk meals straight from a network of more than 125,000 home kitchens to businesspeople around the city. It’s an operation that truly defines “meals on wheels,” be it train, bicycle or rickshaw.

Usually packed by the woman of the house, the lunch is placed in a special box marked according to a specific color code. At midmorning, it is entrusted to a dabbawallah. Along the way, the box will be passed to other dabbawallahs at railroad stations, finally making its way, still steaming hot, to its intended recipient at the other end of the line. When the meal’s over, the tin is picked up and returned home, ready for the next day’s lunch.

And mistakes? Sure they make mistakes-at least one in 6 million. A few years ago, Forbes studied the dabbawallah system and gave it a 6 Sigma performance rating-right up there with blue chip companies.

The dabbawallah system dates back to the days when intrepid explorer and noted American author Mark Twain tramped through Mumbai (then known as Bombay) while it was still an important hub of British-ruled India. Vestiges of British colonialism-language and historic monuments-remain evident in modern Mumbai. Today, the city is a destination that marries exotic allure with the accouterments expected of one of the biggest commercial centers between Europe and Singapore.

Along with Bangalore, Mumbai is considered one of the top two places to do business on the subcontinent and is home to more than 200 of India’s top 500 businesses. The business environment in Mumbai is as complicated as the city’s cultural melange.

Despite its cultural contrasts, including the fact that residents speak any combination of up to 15 different languages, English remains a common thread connecting most of the city’s population. It’s those language skills, along with a low-cost, well-trained and plentiful workforce, that has attracted one specific industry to the region-IT call centers.

An estimated 160,000 Indians work in call centers, the majority in the city of Mumbai. In these centers, thousands of miles from corporate home offices, operators handle both inbound and outbound campaigns ranging from providing sales support to answering technology questions. It’s a job performed in an almost surreal setting. Employees work for weeks to develop American accents, often taking speech lessons and watching Hollywood films as part of their on-the-job training. Most exchange their Indian names for monikers that would fit in anywhere from San Francisco to Shreveport, La.

For years, one major benefit of outsourcing in India was a low attrition rate. Now, increasing competition for trained professionals to work in the IT sector is causing attrition rates to rise slightly, along with wages. Still, typical salaries remain a fraction of those for similar positions in the United States.

Also, lower telecommunications rates have helped offset rises in labor costs. Many of the companies are located in special IT parks equipped with redundant infrastructures to maintain seamless telecommunications and utility service-something that can’t be taken for granted in much of Mumbai. The bottom line is, outsourcing IT services is saving many American companies between 30 percent and 60 percent over what they’d pay for the same services in a domestic setting.

The desire to attract foreign companies and investment in the IT sector has resulted in a business-friendly environment for U.S. companies. Lobbying efforts by the National Association of Software and Service Companies, India’s apex body of the software and services sector, have resulted in income tax exemptions on profits from software exports, reduced import duty on computer software (from a whopping 114 percent to zero), and other fiscal and nonfiscal incentives provided by the government of India to the IT software and services industry.

Outsourcing thrives in other sectors as well. Recently, Richmond, Va.-based electronics retail chain Circuit City outsourced its call centers, hiring Mumbai-based Daksh. Back-office accounting and finance jobs, human resources, data analysis and an increasing number of white collar jobs are also being shipped offshore to Mumbai by many U.S. companies such as Electronic Data Services, the world’s largest outsourcing company, based in Plano, Texas.

The film animation industry is also booming in Mumbai, thanks to Bollywood, the city’s popular movie industry (the nickname harks back to the city’s pre-1996 days as Bombay). While Hollywood might release about 200 movies each year, Bollywood offerings total 800 for the same period. These films remain wildly popular in India and have become a major unifying force in a country separated by disparate languages, religions and standards of living.

Take the movie talents of Bollywood and add the computer talents of the region and you have the makings of a major animation industry. Forecasts show the region’s animation industry could grow from $600 million in 2001 to $1.5 billion by 2005.

“The compelling reasons that are shaping the development of the animation industry in India include demand for animation production services from overseas animation studios due to India’s lower costs for 2-D and 3-D animation production and technical manpower,” says Kiran Karnik, president of NASSCOM. “Animation provides great opportunity for India to capitalize on its two great competencies, namely computer software and entertainment.”

From textiles to IT, from animation to human services, the city has met its outsourcing industry with services aimed at business travelers. Properties-from the modern Oberoi, Mumbai to the historic Taj Mahal Hotel, Bombay-provide the latest high-tech services including wireless, broadband Internet access and hotel butlers trained to meet cyber needs.

While hotels offer business travelers the latest bells and whistles, and call centers field computer questions from half a world away, the hustle and bustle of this city is nothing new. Just ask the dabbawallah as he quickly pedals from office to office. There are lunches to be delivered-and sometimes low-tech makes the perfect accompaniment to a high-tech world.

Investment

The Indian Investment Centre is a government agency that provides information on foreign investment and joint ventures in India. For more information:

Indian Investment Centre,
Jeevan Vihar Sansad Marg,
New Delhi, India 110 001
tel 91 11 373 3673,
fax 91 11 373 2245, iic.nic.in

Foreign-owned businesses must receive permission from:

Reserve Bank of India
Exchange Control Department
Shaheed Bhagat Singh Road
Post Box 1055, Mumbai, India 400 023
tel 91 22 266 1602 or 266 3596,
fax 91 22 266 5330 or 266 2105, www.rbi.org.in

Business Visas

Special business visas can be obtained to allow business travelers multiple entries into India. Visas are also available for foreign investors who are setting up joint ventures in India; these visas are valid for 10 years with multiple entries. For more information on visas, contact:

Embassy of India, Consular Wing
2536 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
tel 202 939 9806, fax 202 387 6946
www.indianembassy.org/consular

Additional Sources of Information

U.S. Consulate, Mumbai
78 Bhulabhai Desai Road
Mumbai, India 400 026
tel 22 2363 3611, fax 22 2363 0350
mumbai.usconsulate.gov

National Association of Software and Service Companies
Regional Office #14/15, Ground Floor
Samruddhi Venture Park, Central MIDC Road
Andheri East, Mumbai, India 400093
tel 91 22 2823 4844, fax 91 22 2837 9158
www.nasscom.org,mumbai@nasscom.org