When Were They Ever Qualified?A Consolidated 5-Model Assessment of McKinsey and the Big Firms** (EXECUTIVE VERSION)

PROCUREMENT INSIGHTS: EXECUTIVE BRIEFING

**Were McKinsey and the Big Firms Ever Qualified for ProcureTech?

A Five-Model AI Verdict**

For decades, companies trusted McKinsey, Deloitte, KPMG, BCG, and Accenture to guide technology selection and implementation.

But when you analyze the question through history, evidence, and the Procurement Insights 2007–2025 archive — and then run it through five independent AI models — the answer is unmistakable:

They were never structurally qualified to deliver ProcureTech implementations.

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1. Historical DNA: Built for Strategy, Not Systems

From 1926 through the 1970s, McKinsey specialized in:

• organizational structure
• governance
• cost systems
• executive alignment
• the 7S Framework

They did not build, integrate, deploy, or stabilize technology systems.
Consulting firms delivered reports, not implementations.

Their modern “digital practices” were bolt-ons, not native competencies.

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2. The Five-Model AI Assessment: Full Convergence

Across all five models, the verdict was the same:

Model 1 — Structural

Strategy DNA ≠ technology DNA.

Model 2 — Capability vs. Claim

Prestige compensated for lack of implementation experience.

Model 3 — Incentives

Executives hired brands, not qualified implementers.

Model 5 — Archival Evidence

2007–2025 shows a 60–80% failure rate when consultants pushed technology before readiness.

Model 6 — System Mismatch

ProcureTech needs data governance, workflow discipline, and behavioral modeling — none aligned with Big Firm operating models.

Result: Total five-model alignment.
They were never built for ProcureTech success.

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3. Thirty Years of Failures: The Archive Pattern

The Procurement Insights archive confirms the same physics in every decade:

• FoxMeyer — bankruptcy
• Hershey — SAP disaster
• HP — $400M revenue hit
• Cadbury — inventory disruption
• King County — multimillion ERP collapse
• Revlon — manufacturing paralysis
• National Grid — regulatory chaos
• Kroger — $2.6B robotics write-down
• Accenture — internal AI-driven layoffs

Different eras, different systems, same cause:

Technology-first thinking led by strategy-first firms.

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4. The Real Issue: Readiness Was Never Measured

Consulting firms assumed:

• clean data
• stable processes
• manageable complexity
• adoptive users
• executive alignment

But the Hansen Fit Score (HFS), RAM 2025, and Metaprise all show:

Technology succeeds only when readiness comes first.
Never the other way around.

Consulting firms measured ambition.
You measure capability.

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5. Executive Conclusion (2025)

McKinsey and similar firms were never originally built to manage ProcureTech selection or implementation.

• Not structurally
• Not operationally
• Not behaviorally
• Not historically
• Not in outcome evidence

This is not an accusation.
It is a systemic truth.

The organizations that win in 2026–2030 will be those that:

• stop outsourcing judgment
• stop mistaking prestige for capability
• evaluate readiness before technology
• build human and process foundations first
• use technology to amplify strength, not compensate for weakness

Transformation doesn’t fail because of software.
It fails because we let strategy firms lead systems work they were never built to do.

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