FIS: market trends and outlook 2025
Recently, I had the opportunity to connect with Harshad Kolpyakwar, head of product management for Energy at FIS, to discuss the market outlook and FIS’s plans for 2025. As many sources have already mentioned, the pace of investment in renewable energy sources is expected to slow down this year. Harshad confirmed this trend, giving an example of large companies already scaling back their even their LNG development plans.
From the ETRM market perspective, Harshad observes that the T2-T3 market remains very active, with a significant number of RFPs being issued. Many new potential customers are spin-offs from large companies, seeking solutions independently of their parent organizations. However, deal sizes are consistently shrinking, with the typical five-year total cost of ownership now under €3 million including cloud hosting and managed services, compared to €4–5 million just five years ago.
This trend can be attributed to several factors, including increased competition, technological advancements leading to more efficient processes, and standardized implementations based on templates. These implementations enable quick go-live deployments with basic functionality, while modern software’s flexibility allows for custom features to be built on top of the templated implementation later. Additionally, customers are increasingly seeking SaaS solutions, which inherently require a certain level of standardization.
In terms of functional requirements, Harshad anticipates a stronger focus on data management over traditional front-, middle-, and back-office functionalities. Customers’ ecosystems are becoming more complex, with a growing number of components—many involving data management and forecasting—that must be integrated into trading systems. Many customers are also building in-house data lakes to manage all the data generated by their various solutions. As a result, many ETRM vendors including FIS are looking to enhance their offerings by including general time-series management tools, either through in-house development or partnerships with data management platform providers.
AI continues to be a key focus for the market. FIS is actively working on implementing AI-driven reporting and has some innovative ideas they plan to pilot with customers, according to Harshad. Agentic AI frameworks and special purpose AI agents could serve as decision-support tools in trading and operations, analyzing incoming data and proactively alerting users to significant events or changes in prices or other critical metrics. These agents could even suggest potential user responses to such events, saving valuable time and increasing operational efficiency.
Keep in touch and sign up to our Newsletter
