Digital retailing has come a long way, yet in many ways, it has only just begun
Drawing from over 20 years of digital strategy experience and a keen eye on the future of retail, our team of experts are your guides to digital transformation. We focus on ecommerce growth, digitally-enhanced stores, reimagined customer experience and organization design to deliver digital strategy. Our operational plans are practical, powerful and high-performing. Our approach provides strategic and financial recommendations to deliver a unified plan across your senior management team.
Accelerating Business Results through AI
Since early 2024, McMillanDoolittle has worked with client executive teams and Board of Directors to accelerate business results through the application of Artificial Intelligence. The first step we recommend is to align AI initiatives with the business strategy through a structured, collaborative workshop-based program to develop an action plan that prioritizes investments and initiatives across the company. We have worked with companies that are just starting out with AI as well as companies that are well along the path of AI adoption. McMillanDoolittle can help your company by:
- Educating your team on what AI can do for your business. We offer programs to improve AI Literacy for personnel at all levels.
- Aligning AI intiatives with the business to deliver real results.
- Advising on use case structure, implementation and performance management.
- Building effective AI Governance programs and/or AI Use Guidelines.
- Working with Business leaders to effectively manage the change involved in the transition to new AI based processes.
- Providing on going content for business to stay on top of AI use cases and trends.
A few examples of our recent work include:
Specialty E-commerce DtoC Retailer
- The Challenge. The client is a niche DTC retailer with a broad SKU set. The company was at “the infant stages of exploring AI” at the time and worried about falling behind the competition. Leadership wanted concrete ways that Generative AI could improve product discovery, conversion and marketing, but lacked structured data, the ability to evaluate unstructured content, and an AI roadmap.
- What we did. McMillanDoolittle led a focused Generative AI Transformation Immersion: pre-immersion stakeholder interviews, facilitated executive and functional working sessions, and hands-on use-case prioritization using our retail GenAI playbook. Deliverables included a prioritized pilot use case portfolio, a short implementation roadmap, and a responsible-AI governance framework to contain data and trust risks.
- The client left the immersion with three near-term pilots ready for 60–90 day launches, a simple governance approach, and a change-management/upskilling plan so pilots could scale — converting strategic curiosity into an actionable, risk-aware GenAI program. Use cases that were implemented have improved website experience (content, visuals, search), marketing initiatives and have lowered operating costs.
Research & Public Policy Leader
- The Challenge. The client is a globally recognized, mission-driven research organization confronting a rapidly changing data environment, new market entrants, evolving government funding, with GenAI as both an operational tool and a methodological challenge. Leadership required a strategic refresh that integrated AI opportunities while preserving the organization’s reputation for trustworthy science. The company was already using Gen AI tools in key areas of the business and had established an AI Center with skilled resources. However, the investment had not yet resulted in an adequate return.
- What we did. McMillanDoolittle supported the client’s strategic plan refresh through Board/stakeholder interviews, bottom-up departmental SWOTs, and synthesis of client and market inputs as well as an assessment of internal AI enablers and capabilities. Through a workshop process we educated that executive leaders on the potential of AI to transform the business, facilitated AI Center of Excellence prioritization and realignment of data and content management initiatives.
- The company ratified a five-pillar strategic plan that positions AI/analytics as an enabler and defines guardrails to protect trust and data quality. The plan translated GenAI risks and opportunities into investable initiatives, governance steps and client propositions that have been operationalized across its research services. The client has decreased the cost of overall operations, reducing headcount, improving speed of delivery while improving overall quality of outcomes.
Mary Purk, founder of @AI at Wharton, leads the McMillanDoolittle AI Team along with Sr. Partner, Mara Devitt. Mary is a highly requested speaker on AI topics for both client board meetings as well as key note events.
