Koopkrag, a major buy-aid society with more than 11 000 members in Gauteng, has replaced its paper-based buying slips with a magnetic debit card system.
Koopkrag provides members with buying facilities at some 1 200 stores around the country. Members register their purchases at point of sale with their debit card, the transaction is settled by Koopkrag, and members are billed with a single monthly invoice reflecting all their purchases.
"In effect, we compete with the credit card companies," says Koopkrag GM Roelf Taljaard. "Our members receive a further benefit, however, in an annual bonus which adds to up to 5,6% of their total purchases for the year."
The conversion was made possible when a Promaster server from Computer Configurations replaced the society`s ageing, proprietary mainframe.
The SCO Unix-based server proved to be a fast, reliable and efficient transaction processing platform to Koopkrag`s bank, allowing Koopkrag clients to make a rapid transition to a debit card-based buying system.
The server was installed ostensibly to provide connectivity to Boland PKS, Koopkrag`s banker, as the mainframe-based system could not do so. "We found the server to be so fast, and so user-friendly, that it helped us move to the card system within a far shorter time frame than we had planned," says Taljaard.
Computer Configurations also committed to providing a backup server in 24 hours, in the event of a system crash. During the testing phase of the installation, this facility was successfully tested when Computer Configurations replaced a failed server with a backup system - complete with the company`s updated Impact financial application running against Informix within 24 hours.
"We could have opted for any hardware solution, but Computer Configurations because identified with our commitment to providing members with an efficient, no-nonsense service," Taljaard observes. "This is a situation where a better technology platform drove a new, improved business process."
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