(Global, July 24) In 2026, the MCN industry is undergoing a quiet but unmistakable shift. According to Kroraina’s estimate, the number of newly registered MCN-related companies grew by roughly 2.5% in 2025. It is worth clarifying that this figure reflects registration activity, not industry-wide revenue growth, and certainly does not mean the entire industry only grew by 2.5%. Even so, this single data point signals something important: the MCN industry is no longer a race that can be won simply by opening more accounts or hiring more teams. The returns on scale expansion are thinning out, and MCN Workforce Efficiency Management is replacing scale expansion as the topic the industry is genuinely talking about.
For Dr Kervis, founder of Zocco Group, this shift does not sound unfamiliar. The following remains an observational angle pending interview confirmation: looking back at his trajectory from the direct-selling and social commerce era, efficiency was not a concept he only started valuing today. It appears to be an instinct he worked out much earlier in his career.
Scale Was Never the Endpoint: Systems Were
In an era when direct selling and social commerce placed the highest value on team size, many people measured success by how many people worked under them or how long their downline stretched. Based on public accounts of his early operating experience, what actually helped him gain solid footing was never simply growing the team bigger. It was building a system that allowed every person on the team to get things done without depending on him personally for every decision.
Why Scale Alone Can Create Cost Pressure
The logic behind this is exactly the efficiency question the MCN industry is now being forced to re-examine: a larger team does not automatically mean higher output efficiency, and more people does not automatically mean thicker margins. If a team can only sustain growth by continuously adding headcount, that growth has already planted the seeds of runaway costs. Conversely, if a system allows fewer people to produce more stable output, scale becomes a variable a company can choose to pursue on its own terms, rather than a target it is forced to chase.
Zocco Group’s MCN Network Layout Places Efficiency Into the Architecture
This emphasis on systems and efficiency has now been carried into Zocco Group’s MCN network layout. The following remains an observational angle pending interview confirmation: within Zocco Group’s strategic framework, the MCN division is positioned within the broader AI + content + commercialization map, rather than being run as a standalone business line built purely on manpower.
The 2026 Cost-Accounting Question
This approach echoes the exact cost-accounting question the MCN industry is broadly facing in 2026. As the marginal returns of scale expansion begin to diminish, companies must return to a more fundamental question: what should they really be measuring, the size of the team or how much output each person can generate? For those accustomed to running teams through systems thinking, this question is not new. The industry is only now beginning to collectively recognize its importance.
Outsourcing and Restructuring Are Tools, Not Excuses
The structure of the industry is shifting. The share of large-scale agencies is declining while smaller teams are taking up more of the market, and this shift is often accompanied by discussions of outsourcing and organizational restructuring. The following remains an observational angle pending interview confirmation: from a systems-oriented operating logic, outsourcing and restructuring are not excuses for cutting costs. They should be tools for improving efficiency by handing off the parts of the work a team does not need to do itself and keeping the team’s energy focused on where it can genuinely create differentiated value.
Efficiency Design Is Different From Passive Cost Cutting
This is fundamentally different from restructuring a team purely to reduce expenses. The former is a deliberate efficiency design; the latter is simply a passive transfer of cost. Whether the MCN industry can truly move past its scale anxiety will largely depend on whether companies can tell these two apart.
Efficiency Was Never a New Word
Looking back, the MCN industry’s 2026 shift from scale expansion to workforce efficiency management is less a brand-new industry turning point than the industry finally catching up to an operating principle that already existed. Scale was never the goal. Systems and efficiency are what make scale meaningful in the first place.
A Lesson Returning in a Different Industry Cycle
For Dr Kervis, this may be exactly the lesson he tested and validated years ago during the direct-selling and social commerce era. Now, in a different industry and a different era, that same lesson is being placed back on the table once more.