How to Power McKinsey’s Operating Model with Excel & AI

SUMMARY: McKinsey outlines a new model built on speed, decentralization, and frontline initiative. An all-Excel strategy—with help from ChatGPT or Copilot—delivers the infrastructure to make that model work—turning Excel from a bottleneck into a strategic engine. It empowers teams, streamlines coordination, and accelerates decision-making with modular workflows and AI-assisted insight. Here’s an introduction to the new strategy.

The pace of change now punishes hesitation—and rewards those who can think, decide, and act quickly.

In its June 2025 article, A new operating model for a new world, McKinsey describes a seismic shift happening inside organizations. Layers of control and deliberation, once considered essential, are now liabilities. In their place, companies need flatter, faster, more adaptive ways of working—centered not on hierarchy, but on speed, insight, and frontline initiative.

McKinsey doesn’t just call for a reorg. It calls for a rethink: from empowering decentralized teams, to simplifying coordination, to adopting a rhythm of rapid, data-driven execution. Nimble teams. Real-time decisions. Transparent performance.

But a vision this bold needs infrastructure. It needs a way to deliver insights quickly, consistently, and without waste.

That’s where the Excel Data Plumbing (EDP) Strategy comes in. While McKinsey provides the architectural blueprint, The EDP Strategy builds the workflow that brings it to life. It gives your Excel users the tools and structure they need to turn that vision into reality.

Why McKinsey’s New Operating Model Matters

In McKinsey’s proposed model, the old pyramid of control gives way to something far more dynamic: decentralized, empowered teams that think and act independently. The frontline doesn’t just carry out tasks anymore—it’s becoming an engine of insight, adaptation, and value creation. Nimble ways of working—quick cycles, iterative delivery, and empowered teams—are central to this transformation.

But decentralization and agility are hard to sustain without structural support. That’s where implementation becomes tricky. Without the right systems, insight becomes a bottleneck, not a breakthrough.

That’s exactly where the Excel Data Plumbing Strategy fits in.

From Vision to Execution: The Role of the EDP Strategy

The EDP Strategy—with help from ChatGPT or Copilot—turns Excel from a time sink into a growth engine. It supports McKinsey’s operating model by transforming how data flows through the organization—starting at the frontline and extending all the way to leadership.

When data work becomes modular, updatable, and repeatable, insights arrive faster, and people at every level can spend more time thinking and less time wrestling with data.

Consider the shift in three familiar organizational layers: the company, its managers, and its Excel users.

At the company level, EDP supports clarity and speed. By automating manual Excel tasks—often 95% or more of them—it can unlock a thousand or more hours per year, per Excel user.

Flowbooks (Power Query–automated Excel workbooks) make updates as simple as a single command. External data, like competitor benchmarks or macroeconomic trends, can be integrated directly into planning and analysis. That creates context, not just content.

For managers, EDP flips the script. Instead of coordinating chaotic reporting cycles, they get fast, consistent reflows (automated Excel outputs) they can trust. Flipbook-style distribution often replaces meeting overload with asynchronous clarity. Managers shift their focus from processing data to using it—to coach, decide, and act.

And for Excel users, the transformation is profound. Instead of being trapped in endless, mindless scutwork, they become strategic contributors. They learn to automate their own reports and build smart models.

They also learn to tap GenAI for ideas, support, and iterative refinement of their Excel solutions—whether by improving queries, redesigning dashboards, clarifying business logic, or rethinking assumptions based on evolving questions.

They gain the tools to move from reactive tasks to proactive analyses.

Where EDP Aligns with McKinsey’s Pillars

McKinsey lays out three major imperatives in its article: empower the front line, simplify coordination, and accelerate decision cycles. Here’s how EDP helps to bring each one to life.

Empowering the Front Line

McKinsey envisions a frontline that leads with insight. But that requires more than encouragement. It takes tools that reduce low-value work and amplify business understanding.

The EDP Strategy delivers exactly that. It uses automation to remove drudgery, AI to accelerate skill-building, and structure to transform scattered efforts into strategic output. Excel users aren’t just building reports—they’re building judgment, speed, and voice.

That means they’re sharpening their ability to spot patterns and implications (judgment), reducing the lag between data availability and action (speed), and developing the confidence and credibility to influence decisions through data (voice).

And by doing so, they add significant value to their companies.

Simplifying Coordination

Nimble teams work best when coordination is fast, clear, and lightweight. Excel Data Plumbing enables this by standardizing data flows and reporting templates, which makes handoffs smoother and updates more reliable.

Instead of version-control nightmares and overlong meetings, EDP-trained teams use modular flowbooks and annotated reflows. Flipbook reports create a running dialogue without clogging calendars. Coordination becomes a process of alignment, not rework.

Speeding Up Decision Cycles

Speed is nothing without clarity. EDP supports McKinsey’s call for faster, more effective decisions by reducing the time it takes to prepare and analyze data. Reflows deliver instant updates. Dashboards become storytelling tools. External indicators help frame performance in context, allowing managers to act quickly and with confidence.

Agility, in this case, isn’t just fast. It’s informed.

A New Model Requires a New Workflow

McKinsey provides the model. The EDP Strategy defines the workflow. Together, they give companies a way to move faster, work smarter, and rely more on the creativity and judgment of their people—especially those closest to the data.

And that’s what this new operating model is really about. Not just restructuring for speed, but rethinking how knowledge flows, how decisions are made, and how frontline insight becomes company-wide intelligence. With the right architecture in place, transformation isn’t just possible. It becomes practical.

And it saves companies staggering costs.

That’s the power of good plumbing.

Turn McKinsey’s blueprint into results—with modular Excel workflows and AI-powered speed. Join the EDP Institute today.