For over a century, McKinsey and its peers have been treated as the intellectual custodians of corporate decision-making. When complexity arises, when transformation beckons, when boards panic or executives feel exposed, the default reflex has been:
“Call McKinsey.”
But as we enter the third decade of digital procurement, and now the era of AI-driven operating models, one question has finally forced its way into the open:
Were McKinsey — or any of the Big X consulting firms — ever qualified to lead ProcureTech selection or technology implementation?
After reviewing the Procurement Insights archives (2007–2025) and conducting a full Five-Model AI assessment, the conclusion is both unavoidable and long overdue:
No.
They were never built for it.
They were never structured for it.
And they were never qualified for it.
This article explains why — historically, operationally, and empirically.
I. The Starting Point: What McKinsey Was Actually Designed To Do (1926–1980s)
If you go back to the origin story — not the modern mythology — the picture becomes clear.
McKinsey began in 1926 as an accounting and “management engineering” firm. Through the 1930s–1970s, the firm built a reputation around:
- organizational efficiency
- cost structures
- governance and restructuring
- strategy formulation
- the 7S Framework
- board advisory and executive alignment
What McKinsey did not do was:
- build systems
- cleanse data
- engineer integrations
- manage technology change
- run enterprise go-lives
- oversee adoption or workflow design
- implement procurement platforms
Consulting firms of that era delivered reports, not systems.
The DNA was strategy, structure, and narrative — not execution or technology delivery.
II. The Big Pivot: When Technology Became the New Consulting Currency
From the 1980s onward, the consulting industry reinvented itself.
ERP exploded.
Globalization accelerated.
Digital transformation became the new gold rush.
Firms like McKinsey, BCG, Deloitte, Accenture, and KPMG built “technology practices” — often by acquisition, outsourcing, or bolt-on capability.
But their underlying operating system never changed:
- prestige over practicality
- frameworks over field evidence
- strategy over readiness
- PowerPoint over process physics
Executives assumed the capability existed because the brand existed.
It did not.
This is the original structural mismatch that haunts ProcureTech to this day.
III. The Five-Model AI Assessment: One Question, One Verdict
When we ran the question — “Were McKinsey and similar firms ever qualified for technology implementations?” — through five distinct AI models, the convergence was absolute.
MODEL 1 — Structural Origin
They were never designed for technical delivery. Their historical DNA is managerial, not architectural.
MODEL 2 — Capability vs. Claim
The firms sold credibility, not competence. No consistent implementation success pattern was documented.
MODEL 3 — Incentive Architecture
Prestige bias, executive comfort, and narrative dominance kept clients coming — not verified delivery ability.
MODEL 5 — Archival Evidence
Across 2007–2025, Procurement Insights logged two decades of failures whenever consultants pushed technology ahead of organizational readiness.
MODEL 6 — Systems Mismatch
ProcureTech requires data governance, behavioral modeling, practitioner readiness, and integration discipline — none of which aligned with the Big X operating model.
Five models.
Five analytical approaches.
One conclusion:
They were engineered for strategy, not implementation — and no amount of branding ever changed that.
IV. The Archives: Thirty Years of Technology-First Failures
The Procurement Insights archives (2007–2025) provide the definitive empirical record.
The pattern is eerily consistent:
Hershey — SAP disaster before Halloween.
HP — $400M revenue hit due to its own SAP rollout.
FoxMeyer — bankruptcy triggered by ERP + automation.
Cadbury — supply-chain disruption from misaligned systems.
King County — tens of millions lost to ERP mismanagement.
Revlon — manufacturing paralysis from go-live chaos.
National Grid — regulatory and operational disruption.
Kroger — $2.6B robotics write-down.
Accenture — 11,000 jobs cut after internal AI overshoot.
Different industries.
Different decades.
Different technologies.
Same physics:
strategy firms attempting to deliver systems they were never built to deliver.
V. The Central Problem: Readiness Was Never Part of the Equation
ProcureTech doesn’t fail because the software fails.
It fails because organizations adopt technology they are not ready to absorb.
Consulting firms assumed:
- data was clean
- processes were stable
- governance existed
- culture would adapt
- change would happen if the PowerPoint was good enough
Procurement Insights, HFS, Metaprise, and RAM 1998/2025 have demonstrated the opposite for twenty-seven years:
Technology succeeds only when readiness precedes implementation.
Never the other way around.
Consulting firms measured ambition.
HFS measures capability.
And capability always wins.
VI. So Why Did Companies Keep Hiring Them?
It’s simple — and psychologically predictable:
- Executive comfort and legitimacy
- Prestige and “board safe” optics
- Powerful storytelling and frameworks
- Lack of internal expertise
- Fear disguised as transformation urgency
But none of those are qualifications.
They are reasons — not competencies.
And after three decades of evidence, the industry no longer has the luxury of pretending they are the same thing.
VII. The 2025 Procurement Insights Position
McKinsey and similar firms were never originally built to manage ProcureTech selection or implementation.
- Not structurally.
- Not historically.
- Not operationally.
- Not behaviorally.
- Not in capability.
- Not in outcome evidence.
This is not an indictment.
It is a correction.
A long-overdue correction.
ProcureTech requires:
- data engineering
- integration architecture
- workflow design
- behavioral modeling
- practitioner readiness (HFS)
- governance discipline
- Phase Zero
These are systems disciplines, not strategy disciplines.
They live on the ground — not in frameworks.
VIII. The Path Forward: From Strategy Illusions to Readiness Truths
The next era of procurement transformation will belong to organizations that:
- Stop outsourcing judgment
- Stop mistaking prestige for qualification
- Stop buying technology before readiness
- Start measuring organizational physics
- Start aligning technology to capability
- Start treating change as a system, not a slogan
This is what Procurement Insights, HFS, RAM 2025, and the Metaprise have been building toward for almost three decades.
Because the question for 2026 isn’t whether McKinsey can pivot.
The question is whether procurement leaders will stop outsourcing decisions
to firms that were never qualified to make them in the first place.
30
Procurement Insights
When Were They Ever Qualified?A Consolidated 5-Model Assessment of McKinsey and the Big Firms** (FULL VERSION)
Posted on December 2, 2025
0
For over a century, McKinsey and its peers have been treated as the intellectual custodians of corporate decision-making. When complexity arises, when transformation beckons, when boards panic or executives feel exposed, the default reflex has been:
“Call McKinsey.”
But as we enter the third decade of digital procurement, and now the era of AI-driven operating models, one question has finally forced its way into the open:
After reviewing the Procurement Insights archives (2007–2025) and conducting a full Five-Model AI assessment, the conclusion is both unavoidable and long overdue:
This article explains why — historically, operationally, and empirically.
I. The Starting Point: What McKinsey Was Actually Designed To Do (1926–1980s)
If you go back to the origin story — not the modern mythology — the picture becomes clear.
McKinsey began in 1926 as an accounting and “management engineering” firm. Through the 1930s–1970s, the firm built a reputation around:
What McKinsey did not do was:
Consulting firms of that era delivered reports, not systems.
The DNA was strategy, structure, and narrative — not execution or technology delivery.
II. The Big Pivot: When Technology Became the New Consulting Currency
From the 1980s onward, the consulting industry reinvented itself.
ERP exploded.
Globalization accelerated.
Digital transformation became the new gold rush.
Firms like McKinsey, BCG, Deloitte, Accenture, and KPMG built “technology practices” — often by acquisition, outsourcing, or bolt-on capability.
But their underlying operating system never changed:
Executives assumed the capability existed because the brand existed.
It did not.
This is the original structural mismatch that haunts ProcureTech to this day.
III. The Five-Model AI Assessment: One Question, One Verdict
When we ran the question — “Were McKinsey and similar firms ever qualified for technology implementations?” — through five distinct AI models, the convergence was absolute.
MODEL 1 — Structural Origin
They were never designed for technical delivery. Their historical DNA is managerial, not architectural.
MODEL 2 — Capability vs. Claim
The firms sold credibility, not competence. No consistent implementation success pattern was documented.
MODEL 3 — Incentive Architecture
Prestige bias, executive comfort, and narrative dominance kept clients coming — not verified delivery ability.
MODEL 5 — Archival Evidence
Across 2007–2025, Procurement Insights logged two decades of failures whenever consultants pushed technology ahead of organizational readiness.
MODEL 6 — Systems Mismatch
ProcureTech requires data governance, behavioral modeling, practitioner readiness, and integration discipline — none of which aligned with the Big X operating model.
Five models.
Five analytical approaches.
One conclusion:
IV. The Archives: Thirty Years of Technology-First Failures
The Procurement Insights archives (2007–2025) provide the definitive empirical record.
The pattern is eerily consistent:
Hershey — SAP disaster before Halloween.
HP — $400M revenue hit due to its own SAP rollout.
FoxMeyer — bankruptcy triggered by ERP + automation.
Cadbury — supply-chain disruption from misaligned systems.
King County — tens of millions lost to ERP mismanagement.
Revlon — manufacturing paralysis from go-live chaos.
National Grid — regulatory and operational disruption.
Kroger — $2.6B robotics write-down.
Accenture — 11,000 jobs cut after internal AI overshoot.
Different industries.
Different decades.
Different technologies.
Same physics:
strategy firms attempting to deliver systems they were never built to deliver.
V. The Central Problem: Readiness Was Never Part of the Equation
ProcureTech doesn’t fail because the software fails.
It fails because organizations adopt technology they are not ready to absorb.
Consulting firms assumed:
Procurement Insights, HFS, Metaprise, and RAM 1998/2025 have demonstrated the opposite for twenty-seven years:
Consulting firms measured ambition.
HFS measures capability.
And capability always wins.
VI. So Why Did Companies Keep Hiring Them?
It’s simple — and psychologically predictable:
But none of those are qualifications.
They are reasons — not competencies.
And after three decades of evidence, the industry no longer has the luxury of pretending they are the same thing.
VII. The 2025 Procurement Insights Position
McKinsey and similar firms were never originally built to manage ProcureTech selection or implementation.
This is not an indictment.
It is a correction.
A long-overdue correction.
ProcureTech requires:
These are systems disciplines, not strategy disciplines.
They live on the ground — not in frameworks.
VIII. The Path Forward: From Strategy Illusions to Readiness Truths
The next era of procurement transformation will belong to organizations that:
This is what Procurement Insights, HFS, RAM 2025, and the Metaprise have been building toward for almost three decades.
Because the question for 2026 isn’t whether McKinsey can pivot.
The question is whether procurement leaders will stop outsourcing decisions
to firms that were never qualified to make them in the first place.
30
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