Exploring revenue assurance strategies that leverage business growth in state owned enterprises. case study of ZETDC.

Abstract

The power utility revenue inflow for the past five years has been dwindling at an alarming rate due to loss of revenue within the power value chain; as a result, this impacted negatively to the company. Reviewed literature points out the future of the company lies on its ability to adopt and implement revenue assurance strategies effectively and efficiently. It is against this background that the study sought to explore revenue assurance strategies that leverage business growth of State Owned Enterprises a case of ZETDC. The main objective of the study is to assess the revenue assurance strategies for ZETDC which enhance business growth. The study adopted a positivism approach and employed a case study design so as to retain control of the whole study and easy data comparison. Data was obtained from 264 participants who were drawn from 780 ZETDC employees using a stratified simple random sampling technique. Questionnaire was used to collect data and obtained data was presented and analysed using SPSS version 23.0. A discussion of the research findings was guided by the research objectives and the information collected was presented in graphs, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics so as to try to infer more information from the sample data. The empirical evidence from the study revealed that there are revenue leakages in ZETDC which are due to both technical and non-technical variables. Revenue losses in ZETDC’s revenue chain have the following effects; dwindling of profits, declining of electricity sales, shrinking of cash flows, impeding the introduction of new products and services, shrinking of the customer base growth, daunting of the infrastructure development and maintenance. All these have a negative impact on ZETDC growth. However, the Company has adopted various revenue assurance strategies, but most of them are not being practiced effectively and efficiently so as to curb revenue losses. It was discovered that there are vibrant revenue assurance strategies that can help the company to grow if adopted and implemented effectively and efficiently. This leads to a conclusion that revenue assurance strategies in the ZETDC revenue chain are not supporting its business growth since they are failing to curb the revenue loss. Therefore the hypothesis that revenue loss in the ZETDC revenue chain is affecting its business growth is supported. Based on findings, it was recommended that ZETDC should adopt strategies that plug revenue leakages. Further study should apply a survey design so as to have clue of State Owned Enterprises strategies.