Retail Memo: Wal-Mart CEO Steps Down; Head of International Operations Mike Duke to Lead Retail Giant; USA Chief Castro-Wright Promoted

In a move today that took nearly everybody by surprise, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. replaced CEO Lee Scott with Mike Duke (pictured at left), the head of the mega-retailer's international operations. Duke will take over as CEO of Wal-Mart in February, 2009. Wal-Mart's investors responded to Duke's appointment by sending the stock up $2.26, or 4.5%, to $52.92 on Friday. The consensus among analysts is that Duke is a good retailer and deserved the CEO's job.

Duke, a former department store executive, only joined Wal-Mart in 1995. he was named to head the company's international division in 2005, making his three year rise from that key position to CEO a meteoric one. Prior to joining Wal-Mart, Duke's 23-year retail career included work for Federated Department Stores and May Department Stores.

When he joined Wal-Mart in 1995 Duke first led the company's logistics divisions and U.S. Wal-Mart stores before being named international chief in 2005.

Wal-Mart also today promoted the CEO of its Wal-Mart USA operations, 53-year-old Eduardo Castro-Wright, to vice chairman of the corporation, effective immediately. He's slated to take on additional responsibility in global procurement.

The announcement paved the way for what some say is his eventual ascension to the top job at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Many believe Castro-Wright, who is considered an extremely excellent retailer, is ready now to be CEO. However, his promotion is a pretty clear sign he's next in line for the position if he wants it whenever Mike Duke leaves. Duke held the same vice chairman position Castro-Wright was just promoted to, as did Lee Scott, before being named CEO. Duke and Scott were responsible for different aspects of Wal-Mart's business though as vice chairman.

Current CEO Lee Scott, who has worked at Wal-Mart for three decades and served as CEO for the last nine years, isn't going away anytime soon though. He will continue as chairman of the executive committee of the board and as an adviser to Mike Duke through January 2011, Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said today.

The timing of the announcement caught most people in the retail industry and on Wall Street by surprise. Changes at the top for huge corporations like Wal-Mart generally don't come towards the end of the year or before the holiday season. Additionally, such changes are usually made at the beginning of a major corporation's fiscal year, which isn't the current case at Wal-Mart.

"Lee (CEO Scott) decided the time was right for him to retire and approached the board about doing so," Tovar said. "The board has an ongoing and rigorous succession plan process. We think the right time is now. It's a time of strength for us."

Wal-Mart didn't name a successor to Mike Duke today as part of the changes at the top for the world's largest corporation and retailer. Duke is Wal-Mart's most senior international executive, which is a key post. Some are suggesting the fact a replacement wasn't named today for Duke could mean Wal-Mart might make an outside hire to replace Duke for its most senior global executive position.

Lee Scott's nine years as the head of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. has been overall a very successful tenure.

Under Scott's leadership, Wal-Mart has put a relentless strategic and operational focus on value that has clicked with shoppers facing myriad economic concerns. He has also put a major emphasis on revamping merchandise assortment, improved store layouts and shored up Wal-Mart's environmental and labor image, positioning the chain as a Wall Street darling after a prior streak of criticism by the media, labor and environmental groups. Wal-Mart currently is the only company on the Dow Jones listing that's up for the year, for example.

Additionally, Wal-Mart has also become the number one seller of food and grocery products in the United States in terms of overall national market share. Prior to Scott's taking the helm as CEO nine years ago Wal-Mart wasn't even close to achieving that distinction.

As CEO Lee Scott launched a massive new store opening program in the U.S. and internationally, focusing mostly on the retailer's mega-Supercenters and Sam's Club warehouse format club stores, but also on its discount stores and Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market supermarkets.

The CEO also has led an aggressive new format development program at Wal-Mart. All of the new Wal-Mart formats in the United States for example -- the small-format Marketside grocery and fresh foods stores; the "Community Market" Hispanic prototype store, the first of which opened in Texas earlier this year, the new smaller (100,000 square feet) Sam's Club prototype; the new Supercenter prototype design, and the new hybrid, smaller Supercenter located in vacant buildings (the first one, at 100,000 square feet located in a former big box supermarket building, opened in Modesto, California on November 12 -- have one basic thing in common: They all offer lots fresh foods and groceries for sale in them.

That all these new formats sell food and groceries as a primary or key feature isn't an accident. What likely could be seen historically as one of the two most important contributions Scott has made during his nine year run as CEO at Wal-Mart could very well be his decision to put the retailer on the path to becoming the dominant seller of food and grocery products in the United States -- and eventually the world. In fact it's this ficus on consumables that most analysts attribute to Wal-Mart's current success in the U.S. and globally during the severe economic recession and financial meltdown.

Scott's relentless pursuit of consumers' food and grocery dollars also led to a decision earlier this year at Wal-Mart USA to start converting scores of its Wal-Mart discount format stores throughout the U.S. in hybrid Supercenters by adding 15,000 -to- 50,000 (depending on the available space) square feet to the discount stores, all of it and then some being devoted to consumables, including fresh produce and meats.

Most of these ideas and concepts for the U.S. came from Eduardo Castro-Wright, who yesterday was the CEO of Wal-Mart USA and today is the company's new vice chairman. However Lee Scott gets CEO credit just like he gets faulted for the negatives, as it should be.

Lee Scott's other major historic contribution has been push as CEO to make Wal-Mart an even bigger global retailer than it was when he took over the head office eleven years ago.

Under Scott's leadership Wal-Mart acquired the Asda chain in the United Kingdom, making it that nation's second-largest retailer after Tesco.

The company grew business in Latin and Central America dramatically.He did a joint venture deal bringing Wal-Mart into India, which has the world's second-fastest growing economy after China.

Scott grew Wal-Mart-China in a huge way, even saying it will someday in the not too distant future become the retailer's largest market, eventually surpassing the United States in terms of sales.

Most recently Scott inked a deal to bring Wal-Mart stores to Russia, which also has one of the world's fastest-growing economies, although that growth has slowed considerably since oil dropped from $142 per-barrel to $50 a barrel in just the last couple months. But it will rise once again -- the price of oil that is.

By naming Mike Duke, the head of its global business, as the new CEO, Wal-Mart is clearly sending a message that it plans on becoming an even bigger international retailer. The retailer's international division, which Duke heads, accounts for more than a quarter of Wal-Mart's $400 billion in annual sales. The company's future growth is globally. Although there's still room to grow sales in the U.S., it's the retailer's most mature market and pales in comparison to the opportunities internationally.

During his tenure as head of international operations, Duke had some hits, but also some big misses. For example, In 2006, Wal-Mart withdrew from Germany and Korea, two big setbacks for the company. And despite taking control of its Japanese business in 2007, Wal-Mart continues to struggle there.

Successes though include Brazil, which has experienced phenomenal growth and serves as a model for Latin America, and India, where Wal-Mart scored a coup by forming a partnership with Bharti Enterprises to expand in that country despite local opposition from mom-and-pop retailers. Add China to the list as well.

And Asda in the United Kingdom is doing extremely well despite that country's economic recession and its position as a distant number two to Tesco. Tesco has a 31% UK market share to Asda's about 17% share. But Asda has consolidated its lead over number three Sainsbury's, which was neck-to-neck with Wal-Mart-owned Asda just two years ago for number two, but now has about a 14.5% share to Asda's about 17%.

Beginning next year when he takes over Mike Duke will have a much different political agenda to contend with as CEO than Lee Scott did during the last eight years of the Republican Bush Administration. With a new Democratic President, Barack Obama, and a Democratic majority in both the U.S. house of Representatives and U.S. Senate, issues such as unionization, which Wal-Mart has been able to keep at bay, are going to become much more pressing for the company -- and for the new CEO.

If organized labor can get the Employee Free Choice Act passed, a provision of which ("quick check") allows workers to merely check a box if they want to be represented by a union rather than going through the current and sometimes elaborate secret ballot voting process, it will make it much easier for unions like the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) to organize store-level Wal-Mart employees, something the union has failed to do for decades. President-Elect Obama and a majority of House and Senate Democrats support the Employee Free Choice Act. Therefore its prospects for passage in 2009 currently look strong.

New CEO Duke also will have some political fences to mend globally; fences he has yet to mend as head of Wal-Mart's international operations.

For example, in September, Mexico's Supreme Court chastised Wal-Mart for paying employees partially in vouchers that could only be used at company stores. The court compared Wal-Mart to the Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz, who ruled the country from the late 1880s to 1911.

Wal-Mart is now Mexico's number one retailer of food and grocery products. As such it can't afford to get on the wrong side of the government.

Other global issues include its Asda chain in the United Kingdom. That nation's top three retailers -- Tesco, Wal-Mart's Asda and Sainsbury's -- have been involved in a multi-year battle with the British government involving charges of anti-competition and price fixing. Earlier this year Asda CEO Andy Bond directed executives of the chain to cooperate with British government authorities against competing chains in return for a promise that the retailer wouldn't be prosecuted or fined. The issue is still taking shape but Asda isn't completely in the clear yet either.

It will be extremely interesting to see who Wal-Mart names to replace Mike Duke in the key position of head of international operations.

Additionally, with Eduardo Castro-Wright moving from CEO of Wal-Mart USA to his new position as vice chairman of Wal-Mart, that opens up the key position of head of U.S. retailing, which remains Wal-Mart's single-largest division in terms of annual gross sales.

We will be watching this closely because since so much of Wal-Mart USA's strategy is focused on selling consumables, and developing new formats that feature food and grocery products, we would expect a person with a food and grocery retailing background perhaps to assume Castro-Wright's position.

Of course that's far from a given since Wal-Mart is fairly deep with food and grocery sector talent below the USA CEO position. However, naming a person with extensive food and grocery retailing experience, either from inside or from outside Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., would send a strong signal that Wal-Mart is even more serious than ever before about becoming the dominant force in food and grocery retailing in the U.S.

[Photo Credit: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.]

Retail Memo: Henry's Farmers Market to Open New Store in Santee, CA On November 12; More New Store's and Remodels On the Way

Retail Rebirth: A New Henry's chain is Being Born

Natural foods retailing chain Henry's Farmers Market, which was bought from Whole Foods Markets, Inc. by Southern California-based Smart & Final, Inc. last year, will open the doors of its newest store, a new, larger and upgraded location on Mission Gorge Road in Santee, California, on Wednesday, November 12. Santee is in San Diego County.

The new Henry's, which replaces an older, smaller store nearby, has been in the works for over one year and will be the first tenant of The Marketplace at Santee, a new shopping center on Mission Gorge Road in the city, according to the retailer, which operates 36 natural foods stores in Southern California and Texas under the Henry Farmers Market and Sun Harvest banners.

There are 28 Henry's stores, located in San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles Counties in Southern California. The eight Sun Harvest natural foods stores are located in Texas.

The Henry's and Sun Harvest natural foods stores were acquired in June, 2007 by Whole Foods when it merged with rival Wild Oats. Shortly after the deal went through, Whole Foods Market, Inc. sold the Henry's and Sun Harvest stores to the investment group which owns Southern California-headquartered Smart & Final.

Smart is Final is a chain of 235 non-membership food and grocery-focused club format-style stores. It has stores located in California, Oregon, Washington State, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho and in the northern region of the country of Mexico.

Smart & Final also recently introduced a new format called Smart & Final Extra. The first store opened in Southern California.

The Extra stores are about 30,000 -to- 35,000 square feet and are sort of a hybrid discount and food-focused store. They carry a larger selection of fresh produce, including some organics, for example than the Smart & Final club-style stores, along with offering a larger variety of single pack food and grocery items than those stores do. The club-style Smart & Final stores carry some single-items but focus on multi-packs and larger sized products.

The larger, modernized Henry's Farmers Market store opening next week in Santee, California will feature expanded product selections in all departments as well as an increased organic produce selection, according to the natural grocer.

The new and larger Henry's store is approximately 25,000 square feet.

"We believe our customers will respond quite favorably to this beautiful new site," says Santee Henry’s Store Director Mark Montejano. "With the added square footage, we are able to offer expanded selections of the fresh and healthy foods Henry's shoppers count on. Plus, the bright, airy space makes the entire shopping experience more enjoyable," he adds.

The previous store was about 15,000 square feet or so.

The re-opening of the Santee Henry's Farmers Market (it's a new store though) is the first of a series of Henry’s new and remodeled store openings throughout Southern California over the next few months.

The Escondido (also in San Diego County), California Henry's Farmers Market store remodel and expansion project is slated to be complete this December and a new Henry’s Farmers Market store in Woodland Hills, California is scheduled to open in early spring of 2009, for example.

Henry's Farmers Market is holding a grand opening celebration at the new Santee replacement store, called "Henry’s Barn Stormin’ Bash," on Wednesday, November 12. The event will offer numerous special festivities at the store from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on opening day, according to a company spokesperson.

Among the free to the public activities on Wednesday will be food sampling throughout the store, a pumpkin pie recipe contest and live entertainment, including local bands and dance performances. There will be face painting and balloons for children (of all ages) as well.

The first 100 shoppers on Wednesday will receive a free Henry's reusable canvas bag full of healthy snacks., according to the retailer.

The mayor of Santee will appear at the store for a ribbon cutting ceremony, and there will be a community pancake breakfast held there, with the proceeds to be donated to Connor's Cause for Children, a local charity.

Additionally, Henry’s Farmers Market will match pre-tax sales from its "Grab & Give Food Drive" at the new Santee store on Wednesday (part of the grand opening) to donate to its annual holiday partnership with Father Joe's Villages, which provides meals for needy families in Southern California.

The old Henry’s store in Santee will be closing its doors at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 11 to prepare for the new store’s grand opening event the following morning.

We're rather impressed with the extent, variety and comprehensive nature of the Santee store grand opening. Most retailers do about half the amount and variety of activities Henry's is doing for the grand opening next week. We call it good marketing. We particularly like the various tie-ins with the local community and charity groups. Doing good for community while doing good for sales is a winning combination in our analysis and opinion.

As we wrote in this this June 2, 2008 piece, "Retail Memo: Analysis: Free of Wild Oats Markets, Inc.'s Ownership, Henry's Farmers Markets Seems to Be Starting to Get its Groove On," since Henry's has become a part of the Smart & Final ownership group, the existing stores have been dramatically improved, as has the overall operation.

In particular have been the improvements from Wild Oats' ownership of the store produce and meat departments and selections, which were looking rather sad during the last couple years of Wild Oats' ownership. (Whole Foods Market, Inc. didn't own the Henry's and Sun Harvest stores for long; they basically sold them as soon as acquiring them as part of the deal. Therefore they neither had the time or desire to do anything with them, except sell the stores.

We've also written about the fact Henry's new ownership and expanded management, merchandising and operations team plans to grow the natural foods chain considerably in Southern California, and perhaps outside of the region.

Henry's Farmers Market also has a few other upcoming changes and surprises in store.

With nearly 30 stores, the natural grocer already is a player in the parts of Southern California it has stores located in. As it adds new stores, and continues to improve the existing stores like it has been doing, Henry's could become a major player in the natural, organic and specialty foods retailing categories throughout the huge Southern California market region.

Retail Memo: Meet Waitrose's Two-Legged 'Hog Blogger'; He's An Integral Part of the UK Food Retailer's 'Save Our Bacon' Campaign

No, United Kingdom supermarket chain Waitrose's "Hog Blogger" isn't a real hog. But he is a real pig farmer, as well as being the upscale food retailer's chronicler of all things porcine on its website.

You might say Waitrose's "Hog Blogger" is the "whole hog." He's 33-year old Fergus Howie, a second generation pig farmer from the English countryside town of Essex.

About his recent debut as a blogger in February, 2008, second-generation pig farmer Howie says:

"I thoroughly enjoy pig farming, it's great fun. As a farmer, I take tremendous pride knowing my pigs have had a lovely life. Our Wicks Manor bacon is dry cured by hand and smoked over oak and beech - in my experience, people are happy to pay a little extra for good quality. I'm proud to be the Save Our Bacon hog blogger. Over the coming months I'll be sharing my tales of life on the farm and I look forward to hearing what you think." Waitrose stores feature the farmer's Wicks Manor bacon mentioned above.

The full-time hog farmer and part time Waitrose blogger is part of the supermarket chain's "origins of our food" policy and program. Under that policy, Waitrose has three principles regarding the foods--especially locally-produced food products--it sells in its 165 upscale food stores and supermarkets in the United Kingdom.

Those three principles are: knowing the provenance of the foods it sells in its stores; food traceability, not only knowing where it comes from but keeping track of its origins in a quantitative manner; and responsible sourcing, which the retailer says means buying locally-grown and produced products whenever possible, along with making sustainable and Fair Trade foods a priority in its procurement and merchandising practices.


When it comes to hogs and pork (bacon, sausage, chops), Waitrose has launched a local foods campaign called "Save Our Bacon," which is designed to save, protect and sustain the British hog farming industry, which has been challenged and threatened by a variety of factors like economics, urbanization, animal disease and the rise of cheaper imports of pork products to the UK.

The Waitrose "Save our Bacon" campaign and the retailer's policy of selling local pork products is where Waitrose's "Hog Blogger" comes in. The full-time hog farmer, part-time blogger, who's local hog farm supplies bacon and other pork products to Waitrose, posts once a week or so on his blog, depending we imagine on how busy he is on the hog farm. [Click here to read and learn all about the grocer's "Save our Bacon" local foods campaign.

Below is the "Hog Blogger's (who remember is a first-time blogger so be gentle) inaugural post when he kicked off the blog on February 20 of this year on the Waitrose website:

Life on the farm
Published: 20 February 2008 20:18:06

Hello this is my first ever blog so stick with me. I’m a pig farmer, Dad started the pig farm about 45 years ago, I was brought up with pigs and my brothers and I used to ride them as small children (Dad said it gave them exercise and would make them better mothers), it was a bit like bucking bronco, and you had to watch where you fell. Our pigs are all farm assured as you would expect, and live...

You can read the "Hog Blogger's" latest post titled, "Who's the Boss," along with all his others to date at the blog here.

Waitrose prides itself on personally knowing every British farmer who supplies local pork, beef, poultry, eggs and dairy products to the upscale supermarket chain.

In fact, all of the beef the grocer sells in its stores comes from British Farms, for example. All of the sausages sold in the stores also come from British farms. Waitrose's bacon comes primarily from UK farms but some comes from Denmark as well. You can read more about the grocer's meat procurement here.

Waitrose, which was founded as a single small grocery shop in west London in 1904 called Waite Rose & Taylor and has been owned by the John Lewis Partnership since 1937, also owns and operates its own farm, the 4,000 acre Leckford Estate,which supplies free-range hen eggs, honey, flour, apples, fresh mushrooms and much more to Waitrose stores.

This weekend, which is the back holiday in the UK, Waitrose is holding a food faire for local vendors and customers at its Leckford Estate. The grocer also conducts regular tours of the estate farm and has a shop on premises which sells fresh produce and other foods produced on the farm.

In terms of the "Save our Bacon" campaign, in addition to pig farmer and "Hog Blogger" Howie, Waitrose has built a strong coalition to move the campaign forward in the UK. The coalition includes celebrity chefs, foodies, farmers, politicians, food industry types and many others. [You can read a recent "Save the Bacon" campaign update from Waitrose here.]

The campaign's strategy is to build local consumer awareness around the issue of saving Britain's hog-raising industry, as well as to promote sales of local pork, and to create laws and policies which will sustain and grow local hog farming and related industries and businesses.

Waitrose regularly writes about the issue and campaign in its popular consumer magazine Waitrose Illustrated and even has a "Save our Bacon" pledge here online which consumers can sign. There's also a "piggy quiz" at the link, where you can test your "pig knowledge."

Meanwhile, pig farmer and "Hog Blogger" Fergus Howie's last blog post was May 14, which is nearly two weeks ago. In other words, the world's only full-time pig farmer/supermarket chain blogger of all things pig (or the whole hog) is due for a new post.

In fact, he's a little late, based on his normal schedule. However, we understand mid-to-late May is a busy time on the pig farm, so we understand.

But we do hope Fergus Howie can break away from his work with the real pigs, so that "Hog Blogger" fans like us, who miss "pigging out" on his posts about life on the pig farm, can get a fresh taste of his latest comings and goings about life on the farm.

To be honest though, we haven't eaten much pork since discovering and regularly reading the "Hog Blogger" blog in March.

Ethical Retailing Memo: Today's Wal-Mart Health Care Announcement

As we wrote yesterday, Wal-Mart, Inc. notified the media that it planned a major health care announcement this morning via a news-conference call.

That announcement, made this morning by Wal-Mart's head of employee benefits Linda Dillman, is that for the first time in the company's 45-year history more than half of its employees had enrolled in its corporate health insurance plan. Twenty percent more employees enrolled in the plan over previous numbers.

This just-published story in the New York Times describes the announcement fairly well. You also can read Wal-Mart's written press announcement here.

In essence, Dillman said after the company revised and improved its health plan last November (2007), the number of workers who signed up reached 690,970, or 50.2% of Wal-Mart's 1.4 million U.S. employees. This is up from 45.5% of Wal-Mart employees who were enrolled in the corporate health benefits plan five years ago, before changes to the plan were made last November.

For a good overview of the changes to the health plan Wal-Mart made last fall, and the issues surrounding those changes, read this November 13, 2007 article from the New York Times.

We aren't sure the fact that only half of Wal-Mart's employees are now covered by the corporate health care plan is exactly news for the retailer to crow about. That leaves the other half not participating in the company's plan.

In the news conference, Dillman explained, with statistics to back it up, that all but 7.3% of the retailer's employees have health care plans.

Those not in the Wal-Mart health care plan are in plans through a spouse's place of employment (22.3% of employees) or in a parent's/school or college plan (4.2%) , or are in government-sponsored plans like medicaid or medicare, she said.

here is a breakdown of those statistics, according to Wal-Mart: 4.3% of employees are on medicare, 1.9% are on state medicaid plans, 1.2% on state plans other than medicaid, 2.3% on military or Veterans' Administration plans, and 2.4% have an individual health insurance policy. The company's statistics show 0.7% having health insurance from "another source." We aren't sure what that means, but it can be a margin of error type statistic we suppose.

This is a good-news, bad news scenario. We're glad these folks are covered. However, one has to ask that if such a high percentage (the 22% in spouse plans) of Wal-Mart associates choose plans other than the company's, why that is? It's likely it's because those plans through their spouse or parent are either more affordable or better, or both than the plan through their employer--Wal-Mart. Frankly, this isn't an impressive fact for Wal-Mart. However, we're pleased that 20% more associates have now got health care coverage through Wal-Mart.

Further, the fact that more than 3% of Wal-Mart employees are on state medicaid plans suggest there still remains an affordability gap at the bottom of the income -scale for company associates.

We strongly encourage Wal-Mart to identify this 3% of its associates who are on state health care plans and do everything the company can to help them get into the retailer's plan. Of course, that's only if the Wal-Mart plan is better than the state medicaid plans are. And the fact is, these workers may be at such a low-income level that they are better off personally to be in the state plans, based on a cost-benefit analysis of the corporate plan. It would also mean Wal-Mart needs to improve its plan, especially for those at the bottom of the income scale.

Lastly, 7.3% of 1.4 million employees is remains a high percentage of workers without health insurance. Dillman said in the news conference that Wal-Mart wants those associates in the health care plan, and is launching a study to find out why they aren't participating. We hope the retailer conducts that study and determines why they aren't in the plan, and does something more to make it affordable for them to join. We think affordability is the primary reason they aren't participating.

The group Wal-Mart Watch, which is funded in part by the service-employees' labor union , issued a statement saying they are surprised Wal-Mart would be proud to report that half of its associates chose not top participate in the company's health plan. Read today's full Wal-Mart Watch statement here. (You also can read a statement here Wal-Mart Watch made in November, 2007, when Wal-Mart made its changes and enhancements to its corporate health plan.)

We think Wal-Mart has made some important, positive steps in changing its corporate health care plan so that more employees are participating, as is evidenced by the statistics. However, there remains that 7.3% who are not only not covered by the company plan, but have no health insurance at all. We encourage the Wal-mart to make getting them insured its top priority. There's also the issue of the current policy cost vs. coverage quality in the company's health plan. At the lower-end of the plan's options, employee costs and co-payments are rather high.

Let's keep in mind its only one measure of health care to say more associates are enrolled. The other equally important measure is how high of a quality and affordable of a plan do the associates have available to them. We think Wal-Mart has more work to do in that regard.

We congratulate the retailer for signing up more employees--but strongly encourage them to make the workers' plans better and more affordable. There is more work to be done on its health care plans by the world's largest corporation, and the country's number one employer.