CKS specialises in the provision of hardware, software (UNISOLV) and support services to the retail pharmacy and general retail markets. We provide software and support services for more than 1300 pharmacies and general retail stores including 7 of the 8 largest pharmacy groups, retail hardware and general retail stores in South Africa. The majority of these stores are connected to the CKS National Network using any one of the following types of connection: Analogue Modem, ISDN, Radiopad, GPRS, Satellite and Diginet. This wide area network is used by CKS clients for the processing of real-time medical scheme transactions, processing of orders, processing of electronic funds transfer (EFT – Debit and Credit Card) transactions, processing of loyalty transactions and remote support.
Our application software, UNISOLV, is developed and maintained by experienced programmers at CKS. UNISOLV is developed in AcuCobol and is run on either SCO Unix or Linux operating systems. The resulting systems are fast, stable and reliable! We offer our pharmacy clients a data capturing service that provides price and medical scheme updates for more than 20 000 ethical products and over 800 different medical schemes. These updates are supplied to the pharmacies via the CKS National Network. We also offer unique services such as the automated CKS Electronic Remittance Advice system, which supplies medical scheme remittances electronically. This allows pharmacies to reconcile their medical scheme claims within seconds!
We have branches in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth and Windhoek, Namibia. Each branch has a fully equipped support infrastructure, with a dedicated helpdesk, field support staff, training center and a network point-of-presence, which forms part of the CKS National Network. The CKS National Network is used to link both retail pharmacy and general retail clients to the CKS Switch, an independent banking switch that allows the processing of Debit, Credit and Buy Aid card transactions directly to the various banks on a real-time basis. The CKS Switch allows for the ‘real-time’ processing of transactions as part of a Branded Private Label Card program or Customer Loyalty program, such as the World Class loyalty benefit scheme run by the Dis-Chem pharmacy group. The CKS switch facilitates centralized debtors management, and the collection and redemption of loyalty points on a ‘real-time’ basis. The CKS Switch also allows for the processing on real-time virtual airtime voucher transactions, directly from the point-of-sale.
