What MCP is, in the language of a VP Operations
The term that will appear in every proposal you get this year. Three minutes, nothing technical.
MCP stands for Model Context Protocol. Forget that. Here is what it means in practice.
The problem it solves
Claude knows how to write, summarize and analyze. But it does not know what is in your Priority, who the customer that called yesterday is, or how much is in stock. For it to know, someone has to connect it.
Until recently, every such connection was a separate development, per tool, per system. Expensive, fragile, and dead the moment the vendor changed something.
What MCP does
It is a standard. One uniform socket. A system with an "MCP socket" can connect to any AI tool that supports it, with no special development. Claude, ChatGPT and most new tools support it.
It is like USB. Once every device had its own cable. Now there is one.
What it means for you
- Well-known systems (Gmail, Drive, monday, Slack) already have a ready connector. Nothing to build.
- Israeli systems (Priority, SAP B1, Hashavshevet) usually don't. You build one connector, and it serves every AI tool from now on.
- That connector is an asset. It is yours, sits in your environment, and does not disappear when you switch vendors.
What to ask a vendor
"Is the connection you are building MCP, and who holds it at the end?" If the answer wriggles, it is not MCP.
That is all you need to know to hold a conversation about it. Which system of yours would you want the agent to see?