What is an MCP server?

What the assistant is allowed to call.

An assistant such as Claude can discover the tools an MCP server offers, then call them with structured inputs. The server sits in front of a system you already run: a CRM, a file store, a database, an internal application.

The assistant does not get a password to the whole business. It gets the tools you expose. Look up a customer. Read a document. Create a draft. File a record. Each tool has a name, a description, and a schema for the inputs. If a tool is not on the server, the assistant cannot call it.

Tools, resources, and prompts.

Three ideas matter more than the protocol name.

• Tools are actions. Read a job from the system of record, or write something back.
• Resources are information the assistant can read, such as a policy or a record.
• Prompts are reusable instructions, when a task should start the same way each time.

A useful server is narrow. "Access to the CRM" is too broad to review. "Find an open job by number, and add a note" is a tool a person can accept or refuse.

When a custom server is worth it.

Major AI products ship connectors for common software. If a ready-made connector already does the job, and your security review accepts how it signs in and what it can change, use that.

A custom MCP is for the gap. The industry system, the internal database, the older platform, or the workflow no vendor connector understands. It is also for the case where a public connector is too permissive. You may need your own sign-in, your own limit on which records can be seen, and a clear line between reading and changing data.

Keen Concepts builds that kind of server as part of a consultancy engagement. The protocol is the interface. The work is deciding what the assistant should be allowed to touch. The service is described on custom MCPs.

What it does not replace.

An MCP server is not automatically an integration between two business systems. If two platforms need to exchange records every night, with no assistant in the middle, that is still an integration.

If a person repeats the same filing task all day, the better answer may be an automation that does not wait for someone to ask an assistant. MCP is the right shape when a person, or an agent with a defined job, needs to ask questions and take limited actions across systems that are otherwise separate.

What to have ready.

• Which system holds the record that matters.
• Which actions are read-only, and which change something.
• Who is allowed to approve a change.
• Whether the data can be sent to a cloud model, or has to stay in a controlled environment.
• What done looks like for one real job, not for the whole company.

That is the same sequence as any other engagement here: discovery, solution design, implementation, a pilot, then maintenance. If you already know the system and the action, send a short note.