EAX Research Institute™

Research written for the person who has to sign the decision

Executive reports, industry outlooks, AI trend analysis, security insight, cloud modernization guidance, and governance playbooks. Findings are stated plainly, with their limitations noted.

EAX Research Institute™

Written research for executives who have to decide

Reports, outlooks, and playbooks drawn from engagement patterns and publicly available guidance. Each publication states its findings plainly and avoids vendor advocacy.

Executive report

What boards actually ask about technology risk

Technology reporting to boards frequently answers questions that were not asked. This report sets out a reporting structure organised around exposure, dependency, and recoverability, with the measures that support each.

2026 · 12 min

Findings

Control counts do not answer questions about recoverability
Dependency concentration is the most common unreported risk
Three measures usually carry a board conversation further than a dashboard

Library

All publications

Cloud modernization

Sequencing modernization when nothing can go offline

A sequencing method for estates where statutory or clinical service cannot pause. Covers dependency mapping, reversible cutover design, and the conditions under which parallel operation is justified.

Reversibility is cheaper to design than to retrofit
Parallel run is a control, not a delay

15 min

AI trend analysis

The AI readiness gap is a permissions problem

Most stalled AI programmes are blocked by content oversharing and unclear data ownership rather than by model capability. This analysis sets out the preconditions that determine whether assistant deployment is defensible.

Assistants inherit existing permission errors and make them visible
Classification at creation is the highest-leverage preparatory control

10 min

Security insight

Identity consolidation as the first security investment

An examination of why identity consolidation and standing-privilege reduction produce more measurable risk reduction than additional detection tooling in most enterprise estates.

Duplicate directories are a recurring source of unmonitored access
Standing administrative accounts dominate incident escalation paths

11 min

Governance playbook

A governance cadence that survives leadership change

A practical governance model: which decisions belong in which forum, what evidence each forum requires, and how exceptions are recorded so that they expire rather than accumulate.

Exceptions without expiry dates become undocumented architecture
Standards without enforcement mechanisms are advisory only

13 min

Industry outlook

Regulated enterprise outlook: resilience, evidence, and consolidation

An outlook for regulated sectors covering demonstrated operational resilience, continuous control evidence, and platform consolidation as a cost and risk response.

Supervisory attention is moving from control existence to control demonstration
Consolidation is being justified on operational risk as well as cost

14 min

Industry outlook

Public sector modernization under appropriation constraints

How agencies structure multi-year modernization into independently fundable increments while maintaining authorization posture and constituent service levels.

Increment design determines whether funding cycles fragment delivery
Authorization evidence should be produced by the platform

12 min

Executive report

Cloud cost discipline after migration

Optimisation is most effective once real consumption data exists. This report covers unit-cost measurement, licensing position review, and the governance required to keep improvements durable.

Design-time estimates rarely survive contact with production demand
Unattributed spend indicates a governance gap, not a pricing problem

9 min