MCP, short for Model Context Protocol, is an open standard published by Anthropic in late 2024 that describes how an AI connects to a tool or a data source. For a business leader, the point fits in one sentence: this protocol turns plugging AI into your software from custom development into a standard connection. What used to cost weeks per tool becomes a reusable building block.
The topic looks technical. It is not, because it determines three very concrete things: how much it costs to connect AI to your data, how quickly you can switch tools, and who owns the integration you are paying for.
The problem MCP solves
An AI assistant with no access to your data knows nothing about your company. It knows neither your prices, nor your customers, nor your documents. To become useful, it has to be connected: to the CRM, to email, to the file server, to the ERP, to the business database.
Until now, every connection was a bespoke piece of development: one model, one tool, one connector. Ten tools, ten connectors, and as many to maintain whenever an interface changes. This is the well-known M × N problem: as many integrations as models multiplied by tools.
MCP replaces that multiplication with an addition. The tool exposes its capabilities once, according to the standard; any compatible model connects to it. You move from M × N integrations to M + N.
What changes, in plain business terms
| Topic | Before | With MCP |
|---|---|---|
| Cost of connecting | One development per tool and per model | One server per tool, reusable by every model |
| Switching models | Rebuild the connectors | Connections stay, you swap the model |
| Lead time | Weeks per integration | Days when a server already exists for the tool |
| Lock-in | Integrations proprietary to the vendor | Open standard, another team can take over |
| Control | Hard to audit | Exposed capabilities are declared and listable |
What it looks like in a mid-sized company
A real example, from a client of our construction division: GAEA Géotechnique, a soil engineering firm that prepares 20 to 25 quotes a week. Every quote means analysing a plot and cross-referencing public soil data. The agent we built queries those public sources through the MCP protocol, pre-fills the borehole layout and the quote template. Human validation remains systematic before anything is sent to the client.
The value is not the gadget: it is that the data connection is a separate building block from the agent. If the model changes tomorrow, the agent changes; the connection stays.
Three questions to ask your provider
- Are the connections to our tools MCP-compliant, or proprietary? The answer determines what you can take elsewhere. A proprietary integration ties you to the vendor who wrote it.
- Exactly which actions are exposed to the AI, and who approves them? An MCP server declares its capabilities: read, write, delete. A good provider shows you that list, restricts it to the strict minimum, and routes sensitive actions through human approval.
- Who owns the code and where do the servers run? The protocol says nothing about hosting: your contract does. Code ownership and data location remain open questions you must settle.
What MCP does not solve
Three illusions to drop. MCP does not clean your data: a half-filled CRM stays half-filled, and the AI plugged into it will answer half-way. It does not define your access rights: deciding who sees what is your job, the protocol merely executes. And it does not replace the framing work: knowing which task to automate first remains the decision that drives the return on investment — that is the purpose of our AI audit.
One sign the standard is taking hold: business software vendors are starting to publish their own MCP servers. Our CTO analysed Retool's move in this article.
Where to start
- List the three tools that hold the information your teams need every day.
- Check whether an MCP server already exists for each one — increasingly, it does.
- Start with a read-only connection on a single tool, and measure the gain before opening up write access.
We build this kind of connection as part of our custom development offer, from €3,000 excl. VAT, and we roll it out progressively within the AI Partnership. To discuss it, book a 30-minute call.