Sitel, a global business process outsourcing provider, has launched what company officials call "a new Continuous Improvement standard."

The firm has established an Office of Continuous Improvement that reports directly to the global head of operations and is responsible for ensuring consistency across Sitel’s 440+ clients and 155+ sites, "developing a global learning culture where all 60,000 associates are on a continuous improvement track," and delivering ongoing process improvement initiatives "with measurable return on customer investment," according to company officials.

The office has a global Black Belt organizational structure with oversight for operational support disciplines including lean Sigma Process Improvement to the site level, project management, client & operational reporting and leadership development and training.

“Our clients partner with Sitel to provide customer care," says Chad Carlson, executive vice president of operations for Sitel, adding that the company "views each non-value added call as a defect."

Sitel’s Continuous Improvement platform uses operational talent within Sitel and from the industry, including processes and advanced technologies. Warehoused data, accessed through global dashboards, provide a real-time global view of operational metrics, letting Sitel Black Belts "identify trends and apply Lean and Six Sigma methodologies to understand and fix the root cause of the issue," company officials say.

Sitel recently appointed Mike Patterson to lead this strategic global office. He reports directly to Carlson. The company is privately held and majority owned by Canadian diversified company Onex Corporation.

In January TMC's (News - Alert) Anil Sharma reported that Sitel was selected by a global travel management company to provide business process outsourcing services. Officials from Sitel said they were selected by the new client for their ability to standardize operations, improve processes and increase efficiencies across five international brands. The contract is worth about $30 million, over three years.