Three years ago, city-based software company Persistent Systems Ltd developed a product for European tyre company Bridgestone-which helped the clients of the latter improve productivity by 800 per cent. About two weeks ago, Persistent won the Nasscom Innovation Award 2008 for this product.

The software firm developed a small mobile Personal Digital Assistant for Bridgestone which aside its core business also rents its tyres to truckers. Trucks traveling long distance sometimes need to change tyres in between journeys because of changing climate or geographical terrain and prefer to rent them along the way instead of stocking them along with the cargo.

However, dealers will need to measure the kilometres the tyre has traveled and determine its usability on a frequent basis to be able to continue with the rental service.

“A process that would normally take four days with four people became possible with say, two people in one day, thereby improving productivity,” said Siddhesh Bhobe, associate vice president of the company, who led the project, in a media interaction to announce the award on Thursday.

The Persistent Systems team had developed a small mobile device — a wireless Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) — that could instantly validate the age and the usability of the tyre — like the tyre pressure, thread depth and the number of kilometres clogged. “Dealers were willing to pay as much as 3,000 Euros for this product. Previously, data collection on tyres had to be done in difficult work conditions and was manually collected by non-IT saavy small businesses. As most of the labourers were working on contract basis, this product saved work time and improved efficiency,” Bhobe said.

In the last three years, over 2,000 dealers in Europe have bought the device while Persistent Systems has also come up with several updates for the device.

In the present economic scenario, companies must look at subscription business model like the Bridgestone’s initiative with tyres, where small quantities for small sums are offered to customers over time, said Anand Deshpande, founder, chairman and managing director of Persistent Systems.