Africa-Press – Malawi. A growing number of utilities are using tools such as SAP Business Integrity Screening in combination with SAP partner solutions to improve revenue assurance and plug any gaps in operations that may lead to revenue loss.
By leveraging powerful analytics and big data capabilities, revenue assurance tools help utilities identify potential cases of fraud and proactively inform technical teams to investigate.
For example, if a customer’s energy consumption stays exactly the same month after month despite seasonal changes, there is a likelihood that some form of fraud is being committed. Energy use usually increases and decreases in different seasons, with most customers using less power in summer when it’s warm compared to winter when heaters are used and electrical hot water heaters work harder to stay warm.
By tracking energy consumption patterns over long periods of time and matching that data to seasonal consumption models, utilities can leverage their revenue assurance tool to ensure they always collect the optimal revenue from every customer.
By using predictive models and integrating the revenue assurance functionality to their enterprise resource planning core, utilities can develop a better understanding of known customer usage patterns. Over time, utilities can apply this knowledge to develop detection methods and strategies that can highlight unknown patterns that may indicate fraud or revenue leakage.
African utilities are at a pivotal moment as booming population growth and rapid economic development pushes them into building greater capacity while also transitioning to a clean energy future. However, without optimal revenue collection, utilities will lack the financial agility to survive and thrive during this disruptive time.
With the clever application of technology, however, utilities can mitigate the risk of fraud and ensure they have the financial stability to take a leading role in our continent’s development and just energy transition.
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