We’ve all seen those 30-tool Swiss Army knives - the ones with the fish scaler, the altimeter, the wire stripper, and the magnifying glass. They look incredible in the display case. You might even buy one "just in case" you ever find yourself checking your altitude while scaling a trout. But in reality, they usually collect dust in a drawer. They are too heavy for a pocket and incredibly clunky to use when you just need a simple blade to open a box.
Legacy ETRM systems are often built with the same "one-size-fits-all" mindset; they are designed to be generic enough for everyone, but often end up being a poor fit for anyone.
We recently sat down with a trading organization that manages its portfolio through one of the massive, legacy ETRM systems. While these vendors often sell functionality via specific license keys - suggesting you only pay for what you turn on - the reality on the ground was stark: the team estimated that the actual business value they derived came from a tiny fraction of the platform's total footprint. Whether the unused features are dormant licensed modules or "generic bloat" that came with the base package, the result is the same: a technical anchor.
It is true that almost no software user has 100% adoption. Industry estimates suggest that 20-40% of functionality in a typical ETRM goes unused. This often happens because companies use template RFPs that include "requirements" they don't actually need, or because their business model shifts over time. But "unused potential" and "toxic bloat" are different animals. In a legacy environment, the functionality you don't use - the gray area between what you pay for and what you actually need - is actively dragging you down.
Risks with big names
We've all heard the saying: "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." It implies that choosing the biggest, most established name is the safe bet. In the energy industry, this often translates to purchasing a massive, monolithic ETRM suite to mitigate perceived risk. But as experts point out, the goal should be seeking the best fit, not just the biggest name. Eliminating anything too generic or beyond your current needs is a vital step in the purchasing process.
But for many organizations, that safe choice actually creates a significant financial and operational burden. Poor business fit increases costs and change management risks, all while reducing actual adoption by the team.
Functionality lying dormant
When you buy a much bigger ETRM than your operating model requires, you are effectively paying for dormant modules. License, infrastructure, and implementation costs; they all scale with the breadth of these modules. Budget and management attention are spread thin across many capabilities, making it harder to deliver tangible value in the areas that matter most to your operating model.
In a specialized energy portfolio, this bloat often hides in plain sight: We see it constantly in exotic market coverage, connectivity bloat, advanced analytics overkill and niche compliance modules.
Hidden risks of complexity
The danger of an oversized system goes beyond the invoice, as complexity is a primary source of failure and rework in ETRM programs. This is because every "extra" feature adds friction.
For the giants of the industry, this friction is a daily reality. Many large energy traders rely on massive systems developed in the 1990’s, ever since gradually migrating and features have been added ever since. These platforms are so deeply integrated into the corporate landscape - connected to every accounting, reporting, and trade execution tool - that many organizations are terrified to touch them. They continue to spend a fortune on maintenance, licenses, and upgrades just to keep the status quo, trapped by the massive "sunk cost" of their implementation.
This leads to the classic "program fatigue," where the project team burns out and stakeholders lose interest before the critical functions are even live.
Each additional module or interface also adds integration points to legacy systems, trading platforms, market data feeds, and downstream finance or BI systems. If you have ten modules you don't use, you still have ten extra ways for the system to break during a master data update or a server migration.
From an operational perspective, an oversized core system can become harder to operate day to day. It introduces more configuration options, more master data dependencies, and more process variants to support. This impacts the people sitting at the desks. Users must navigate screens and concepts that are irrelevant to their roles, which reduces usability and slows transaction processing.
When the system is too clunky, users vote with their feet and they will walk back to what they know: spreadsheets. When adoption is patchy, shadow IT and manual workarounds multiply - especially in trading and risk - which undermines the integrated data model that the ETRM is supposed to provide in the first place. You end up paying for a centralized source of truth, but your business decisions are actually being made on decentralized Excel sheets stored on local drives.
Tech debt and maintenance
There is a long-term cost to this complexity as well. Many organizations follow the logic of "never touch a running system." It’s an approach we see in aviation: the Boeing 737 was developed in the 1960s and has been evolving for decades. But because a major overhaul was deemed too expensive and too risky, the industry is now dealing with the consequences of layering new tech onto a legacy foundation. The Airbus A320 is now facing similar hurdles. In ETRM, this manifests as chronic Technical Debt.
Large, heavily featured platforms are harder to regression-test and upgrade. Because every upgrade becomes a massive, high-risk undertaking involving months of testing unused modules, organizations often start deferring them. This increases security exposure and regulatory risk. If you have layered customizations on top of that rich standard functionality, the issues are amplified, making every future change slower and riskier. The "safe" legacy system eventually becomes a security liability that you are afraid to touch.
Missing the future
Here is the ultimate irony of the "big legacy system": despite having thousands of features you don't use, it often lacks the tools you actually need for the modern energy transition.
Energy markets are evolving from a world of massive, predictable power plants to a landscape of smaller, distributed, and flexible assets. To make money in 2026 and beyond, you need to optimize between day-ahead, intraday, and ancillary services.
Most legacy ETRM systems do not support ancillary services at all, much less multi-market optimization. They were built for a linear, top-down market structure. If your system was designed two decades ago, it likely also lacks the granularity to optimize smaller, distributed assets effectively, to communicate with and manage complex assets like battery storage and flexible loads, or to handle the volatility of modern short-term markets.
The modular approach
We advocate for a modern, modular ETRM system. A modular approach allows you to deploy exactly what you need today, with the ability to "plug in" new functionality as your portfolio evolves.
If you are trading standard power and gas in the CEE region, that is all you should pay for. You should not be subsidizing the R&D for LNG shipping modules you will never use. If you decide to add battery storage or move into the Nordic markets next year, a modular architecture lets you add those capabilities then without disrupting your core operations.
This approach resolves the fundamental risks of the legacy model:
Scopes remain manageable, reducing the risk of program fatigue.
Traders and operators see a clean interface designed for their specific workflow, not a generic dashboard meant to serve every commodity from oil to carbon.
Smaller, independent modules are easier to update and secure, keeping you current with market changes without the "big-bang" upgrade risk.
Is your ETRM worth what you're paying for? If you aren't sure, take a walk through your trading floor. Look at the screens. If you see your team spending more time in Excel than in your expensive "Tier 1" platform, you already have your answer. It might be time to move from the legacy bridge back to a modern, efficient engine room.
