EnBW Auction Trading Platform: From SaaS to In-House

For years, the software industry encouraged companies to outsource complexity. Buy the platform, let the vendor run it, and focus on the business.

For many systems, that’s still the right approach.

But some platforms eventually become too important to remain in someone else’s responsibility. That’s increasingly true in energy trading.

As markets become more interconnected and business requirements evolve faster, trading platforms need to adapt just as quickly. New integrations, new market processes, regulatory changes and operational improvements don’t always fit neatly into a software vendor’s release cycle. At some point, the question is no longer whether the technology works. It’s whether the organization has enough control over how it evolves.

That question was at the centre of EnBW‘s decision to bring its auction trading platform in-house.

Building an Internal Capability

Over the past months, LEAD has worked alongside EnBW to transition the company’s auction trading platform from a third-party SaaS solution into EnBW’s own AWS environment.

Today, the platform is live as an EnBW-owned solution – the outcome of a successful and effective synergy between EnBW and LEAD, marking a milestone that represents far more than a cloud migration.

Running a platform internally means taking ownership of everything that comes with it – its architecture, operations, releases, integrations, and long-term development. The platform becomes part of the organization’s own capability rather than a service delivered by someone else.

For EnBW, that creates the freedom to evolve the platform according to business priorities while building internal knowledge, operational expertise, and the strategic independence that comes with owning the solution. At the same time, the platform itself has been purpose-built around EnBW’s specific business needs, with its functionality continuously refined through close collaboration and feedback from EnBW’s teams.

Making the Transition Work

Moving from a SaaS operating model to an internally managed platform requires more than technical delivery. Every integration has to continue working. Production stability cannot be compromised. Trading Teams need to be prepared to use the platform confidently and with ease from day one.

The program brought together expertise across software engineering, cloud infrastructure, business analysis, project management, transition and service design, requirements engineering and product development.

The technical implementation included backend development with Java and Spring Boot, frontend development with React and TypeScript, AWS-based cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines and Datadog monitoring, creating a modern cloud-native platform designed to support future development while maintaining the reliability expected from a business-critical trading system.

Success Is Measured After Go-Live

Since going live, the platform has proven to be stable in production and has been embraced by both business and technical stakeholders. Feedback has exceeded expectations, with users rating the new solution significantly higher than the previous third-party platform.

For the delivery team, that validation confirms that the platform is not only technically sound but also delivers value to the people who use it every day.

Looking Beyond Delivery

In April, we had the pleasure of welcoming Ruslan Budirahardjo and Krischan Keitsch from EnBW to our Sofia office, where they joined Ivanko Belneyski, Miloslava Teneva, Kaloyan Golemanov, Viktor Petrov, Aleksandar Georgiev, Antoni Sredkov, Stanimir Spasov, Antony Zhelyazkov, Dragomir Stanchev, and Iliyana Komsiyska from LEAD for a three-day workshop dedicated to reflecting on the progress made, celebrating key milestones, and planning the next phase of the journey together.

Over three days, LEAD and EnBW teams reviewed completed milestones, discussed operational experience following the go-live, and identified opportunities for further optimisation.

Beyond the technical agenda, the workshop captured the spirit that has been at the heart of the project from day one: one team, united by a shared goal. That mindset has been one of the project’s greatest strengths, allowing the platform to evolve through continuous collaboration and shared expertise every step of the way.

The Bigger Picture

The conversation around cloud in the energy sector has changed.

A few years ago, the challenge was getting critical trading systems into the cloud. Today, many organizations have moved beyond that discussion. The more important question is what they want to own once those systems are there.

Not every platform should be developed and operated internally. But for capabilities that sit at the heart of trading operations, ownership can become a strategic advantage rather than simply a technical choice.

EnBW’s auction trading platform is one example of that shift. It shows that bringing a critical trading capability in-house is about building the ability to shape, operate and continuously improve a platform that has become central to the business itself.