Ipsos Karian and Box

What Ipsos Karian and Box does

Ipsos Karian and Box (legal entity Employee Pulsecheck Ltd) is a UK-based employee research and experience consultancy founded in 2006 in York by Ghassan Karian and acquired by global research firm Ipsos in 2022. The firm operates from three UK offices — York, Manchester, and London — with a team of over 100 specialists, supported by an additional network of 200+ employee experience experts via its Ipsos parent. Its service portfolio is organised around four core solutions: Listening Strategy (auditing and roadmapping employee listening approaches), Listening Programme (end-to-end survey design, implementation, data management, and reporting), Employee Insights (advanced analytics including segmentation and predictive analytics, plus executive and board briefings), and Advisory (culture, change, transformation, internal communications, purpose/values, and EVP consulting).

The firm's technology stack is platform-agnostic, integrating with five major employee experience platforms — Qualtrics, WorkBuzz, Perceptyx, Glint, and Medallia — rather than building its own survey engine. Its differentiated intellectual property consists of the proprietary Listening Maturity Framework (Listen, Act, Enable), recurring benchmark publications including the annual IC Index (now in its 4th edition for 2026) produced in partnership with the Institute of Internal Communications, and the Work on What Matters report surveying 5,000 UK employees. The firm also draws on a global benchmarking database of over 3 million employee responses sourced through the Ipsos network.

Ipsos Karian and Box generates revenue through professional services engagements — strategic consulting, research programme delivery, and analytics/reporting — sold via direct enterprise field sales to HR, Employee Experience, and Internal Communications teams at large UK and global organisations, with pricing custom-quoted per engagement. Its customer base spans half of the FTSE 30 and FTSE 100, with named enterprise and government clients across banking and financial services, energy, aviation, retail, FMCG, healthcare, and telecommunications including HSBC, Barclays, Nationwide, BP, Rolls-Royce, British Airways, NHS, Sainsbury's, and Diageo. Marketing is driven by thought leadership — research reports, an insights blog, quarterly Spark Sessions events for senior HR and Comms leaders, email newsletters, and LinkedIn — rather than performance or paid channels.

Name

Ipsos Karian and Box

Legal name

Employee Pulsecheck Ltd

Website

https://ipsoskarianandbox.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2006

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

Ipsos Karian and Box is a UK-based employee research and experience consultancy, acquired by Ipsos in 2022, that provides employee listening strategy, survey programme delivery, analytics, and advisory services to FTSE 30/100 enterprises and HR, EX, and Internal Communications teams.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

York

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Consulting and Advisory Services: Strategic consulting engagements for employee listening strategy, culture change, transformation programmes, internal communications, purpose/vision/values, and EVP development. B2B professional services model with long-term client partnerships.
2. Research and Survey Delivery: End-to-end employee research programmes including survey design, implementation, data management, translation, accessibility, and quality control. Revenue from project-based and retainer engagements.
3. Insight Reporting and Analytics: Advanced analytics packages, bespoke executive briefings, board presentations, and world-class insight reports. Includes segmentation, predictive analytics, and integrated analytics services.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Ipsos Karian and Box is a B2B employee research and experience consultancy that helps large organisations design, deliver and act on employee listening programmes. It provides four core service lines — Listening Strategy, Listening Programme (end-to-end survey delivery and governance), Employee Insights (advanced analytics and executive reporting) and Advisory (culture, change, EVP and internal communications advisory) — underpinned by the proprietary Listening Maturity Framework, access to a 3M+ response benchmarking dataset, and technology-agnostic advisory across leading EX platforms.

Product overview

Ipsos Karian and Box is an employee research and experience consultancy offering a four-part service portfolio: Listening Strategy, Listening Programme (delivery), Employee Insights (analytics and reporting), and Advisory. The company also operates the Insights Hub, a resource portal encompassing research Reports (including the annual IC Index), Spark Sessions events, and Practical Insights articles. The Listening Maturity Framework provides a diagnostic tool across three pillars: Listen, Act, and Enable. Together these services help HR, Employee Experience, and Internal Communications teams listen intelligently, act decisively, and lead confidently through a blend of deep expertise, technology platform advisory (Qualtrics, WorkBuzz, Perceptyx, Glint, Medallia), and end-to-end support.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Listening Strategy Consulting service that helps organisations step back and define or redefine their employee listening strategy, balancing best practice with current context and ambition. Includes auditing current state, defining vision and creating a roadmap. Aimed at HR and Employee Experience leaders at large enterprises.
• Listening Programme End-to-end delivery support for employee listening programmes, covering survey design, implementation, data management, reporting, analytics and action planning. Supports annual surveys, pulse approaches and continuous listening for HR and EX teams.
• Employee Insights Specialist analytics and reporting service that turns complex employee data into credible, actionable insight. Includes world-class insight reports, executive and board briefings, and advanced analytics packages such as segmentation and predictive analytics.
• Advisory Advisory services turning employee insight into action across culture, change and transformation, internal communications, purpose, vision and values, and Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Combines strategic thinking with creative studio capabilities.
• Listening Maturity Framework Framework and assessment tool helping organisations evaluate their listening maturity across three pillars: Listen, Act and Enable, accompanied by a 10-question Listening Maturity Pulse Quiz.
• IC Index Annual benchmark report published in partnership with the Institute of Internal Communications (IOIC), tracking how UK employees feel about internal communication. Based on surveys of 5,000 UK employees.
• Work on What Matters Research report surveying 5,000 UK employees exploring six key workplace topics: change, AI, productivity, leadership, line managers and future confidence. Provides a holistic roadmap for HR, IC and EX leaders.

Quantifiable outcome

• +65pt increase in employee advocacy for British Airways
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers20 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• TeneocoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAgency partner collaborating on client engagements. Worked alongside Ipsos Karian and Box on Rolls-Royce transformation programme, with Teneo supporting content development for executive-level workshops and group sessions.
• QualtricscoreTechnology or IntegrationTechnology partnership delivering employee experience platform implementation and support. IK&B and Qualtrics have track record of partnering with clients to manage tech transitions, providing combined expertise in consulting and EX technology. Delivered Royal London's listening programme transformation.
• Institute of Corporate Productivity (iCP)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborated with iCP on Future-Ready Culture research to identify what sets organisations with future-ready culture apart.
• Institute of Internal Communications (IOIC)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerResearch partnership with IOIC on the annual IC Index report, exploring the state of internal communication in UK organisations.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves9 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Emerging players

• Workday Peakon Employee Voice: Continuous employee listening tool owned by Workday, with native analytics and benchmarking. Competes for enterprise EX technology budgets and partially substitutes traditional EX consulting engagements.
• Perceptyx: Employee listening platform with analytics and action-planning tools. Direct competitor in the technology platform layer that IK&B integrates with, and a partial substitute for IK&B's listening programme delivery.
• Culture Amp: Employee feedback and engagement platform with embedded analytics and benchmarking. Competes with IK&B's listening programme delivery and Employee Insights services, particularly for mid-market and large enterprise HR teams.

Broad incumbents

• Willis Towers Watson: Global advisory firm with employee experience, culture, and engagement consulting practices serving large enterprises. Competes for enterprise HR and EX advisory engagements across FTSE-grade clients.
• Qualtrics: Global leader in experience management software including employee experience. IK&B is a strategic implementation partner (e.g. Royal London migration) but Qualtrics's expanding native analytics and AI-driven insights compete directly with IK&B's analytics and advisory services.
• Oracle HCM / Oracle Workforce Management: Enterprise HCM suite with embedded employee listening and workforce analytics capabilities. Competes indirectly for enterprise EX budgets by offering platform-native engagement tooling that reduces need for external research partners.
• Mercer: Global HR and benefits consultancy with employee research and workforce analytics practices. Comparable on enterprise HR advisory, culture and engagement work, and large benchmarking data sets, though broader portfolio means Mercer is less specialised in EX than IK&B.

Direct peers

• Great Place to Work UK: UK employee research and certification body running large-scale employee surveys (Trust Index) and benchmarking programmes for FTSE-grade enterprises. Comparable to IK&B on enterprise employee research delivery and benchmarking-led value proposition.
• Gallup: Global leader in employee engagement research, workplace analytics and strengths-based consulting. Closest direct peer to IK&B given the shared model of proprietary survey instruments, large benchmarking databases, and enterprise advisory for culture/engagement.

Regional players

• Robertson Cooper: UK workplace wellbeing and engagement consultancy. Specialised peer with overlapping FTSE client base and similar B2B advisory model; relevant comparison for UK employee engagement consultancy market positioning.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInuk.linkedin.com/company/karian-and-box
• Xx.com/KarianandBox

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles13 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Ipsos Karian and Box