How Nitin Sethi is putting IT at the heart of Autoliv Americas by shifting IT from function to partner
Nitin Sethi, vice-president and head of IT, Autoliv Americas
In his first interview since joining Autoliv Americas as vice-president and head of IT, Nitin Sethi argues that IT’s value proposition has changed – and that companies failing to unify IT, business and supply chain management teams risk leaving competitive advantage on the table.
There is a question that Nitin Sethi likes to ask at the
start of every conversation with a business leader: not "what do you need
from IT?" but "what problem are you trying to solve, and do I already
have something in my arsenal that can get you 70 to 80% of the way there?"
It is a subtle but significant shift in framing – from reactive support to
proactive problem-solving – and it captures the philosophy Sethi is bringing to
his new role as vice-president and head of IT at Autoliv Americas.
Senior leaders in supply chain and logistics at automotive
OEMs and suppliers are not short on digital ambition. Many have spent the past
several years mapping a future shaped by expanded use of digital tools and
data, with an emphasis on improved forecasting, real-time visibility and faster
decision-making. But as expectations sharpen around execution, delivery, resilience
and quality, so too does the question of what role IT should play within the
supply chain.
Under the traditional model, IT has largely been responsible
for system stability, transactional efficiency and cost control – typically
engaged only after key operational decisions have already been made. The
expansion of digital supply chain capabilities has begun to blur these
boundaries. Responsibility for digital initiatives is now frequently
distributed across supply chain, IT and data teams, creating coordination
challenges and, in some cases, slowing implementation. The result is a growing
need for closer alignment between business, supply chain and technology
functions.
It is at this moment that Sethi steps into his position at
Autoliv Americas. He joined the Automotive safety systems supplier in November
2025, bringing more than two decades of enterprise IT and automotive
experience. He previously led digital strategy, data and enterprise
architecture at Visteon as global IT director, helping reposition the supplier
as a software-led business, and most recently ran HCLTech's automotive practice
as associate vice-president. Earlier roles at Accenture and Oracle saw him
deliver large-scale ERP, cloud and transformation programmes for global
manufacturers, which has led to a career built at the intersection of
automotive operations, technology strategy and enterprise transformation.
In his first interview since stepping into the role, Sethi
speaks with Automotive Logistics about where the opportunity for IT lies
– and it begins, perhaps counter-intuitively for a conversation about
transformation, with slowing down. Not as a detour from ambition, but as
something that makes it possible.
"The goal is to keep the business running flawlessly as
it does today, and then deliberately invest in scalable digital capabilities
that will power our future," he says.
Nitin Sethi is leading efforts at Autoliv Americas to align IT, supply chain and business teams, creating a simpler, more integrated digital foundation that supports better decisions and faster executionSource: Autoliv
Prioritising core stability before transformation
Sethi says his “immediate focus is establishing a ‘run and
transform’ model”. The logic, he explains, is that operational stability and
transformation must run in parallel, but stability comes first.
On the run side, the requirement is straightforward. “We
want to strengthen our core, ensuring that our existing systems, plants,
engineering systems and business platforms are stable, secure and resilient,”
he says. “For me, avoiding any downtime is foundational. We need the basics
running effectively before we move into the transformation phase.”
Governance and platform standardisation follow the same
logic. “We want strong governance and cost discipline, but most importantly a
common digital platform,” Sethi says. “We don’t want to reinvent from scratch.”
His aim is to build on what is already standard inside the organisation, rather
than add new layers of complexity.
Simplification is the other side of the same plan. Sethi
says IT needs to “start by identifying what we have today and finding ways to
simplify the foundation… Simplification
is key – fewer systems mean less complexity, lower cost, and faster execution.”
The goal is fewer IT systems and platforms to support and
fewer variations to maintain. “Rather than having 50 different things, you have
one foundation you’re working from, which accelerates transformation,” he says.
In a supply chain context, that simplification is critical
to enabling consistent data flows across plants, suppliers and regions – reducing
the need for manual reconciliation and allowing planning, risk management and
logistics teams to work from the same underlying information.
It is a view that has gained traction beyond Autoliv. At the
recent Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain Europe conference, Marcin
Mercik, head of supply chain management at ZF Lifetec, drew
a similar boundary: “You cannot cover the gap on process and data with
artificial intelligence [or other digital tools]." Within Autoliv itself,
Johan Öhlin, the company’s global logistics category manager, also emphasised
the role of data in strengthening day-to-day logistics decision-making. “We
have better data and can get that on a global scale, so we are getting better
support – we’re getting better decisions at those local levels,” he said at
ALSC Europe, highlighting how improved data visibility is enabling faster, more
decentralised responses across the network.
Sethi also connects simplification directly to cost release.
“It's going to free up our cost and capacity,” he says, arguing that savings
and freed-up delivery capacity can fund the next wave of work. “I strongly
believe in a self-funding model, where efficiencies we unlock today will help
fund tomorrow’s transformation,” he adds. “If we can achieve meaningful cost
savings, that can help fund our transformation efforts in parallel.”
And the way IT is organised matters as much as the roadmap,
he argues. “The people driving transformation need a very different mindset
from those running and maintaining operations… It’s not that one is better than
the other, it’s about two distinct skillsets that need to work hand-in-hand,” Sethi
says.
Over the next few years, Sethi’s focus is on building new
capabilities on top of a stable core. “My goal is to further enable digital
capabilities – whether that’s data, automation or AI,” he says.
Aligning IT projects to business outcomes
Sethi says the first test for any IT investment is whether
it can be tied to measurable business results. “We’re prioritising initiatives
that drive clear business value,” he says. “They have to align with the overall
business strategy.”
That emphasis, he says, should change the tone of technology
delivery. “It’s not about deploying systems for the sake of it, but it’s about
providing a solution,” Sethi says.
He returns to the same test when asked about the value of
digital tools and platforms. “For me, it’s not about the technology itself, it’s
about whether we can deliver measurable outcomes,” Sethi says. “Are we meeting
the key KPIs set by the business, and are we helping to achieve them?”
That instinct extends to how he talks about technology
internally. “I don’t want to sell tools for the sake of it,” he says. “Even if
it’s just two or three areas, if they improve overall business outcomes, that’s
where we should focus our energy.”
That discipline has particular resonance elsewhere at
Autoliv, where the digital groundwork is also being laid by the company’s
vice-president of global logistics, Dr Gisela Linge, who has spoken about
the company’s journey to building an end-to-end data model – integrating
financial, sales and product data into a command centre capable of running
simulations. It is a project she has described as resting on three pillars:
processes, people and systems. In fact, Linge specifically cited “the
involvement of IT professionals from the very start” was key to the success of
the data-consolidation project.
It is this kind of cross-functional foundation that Sethi’s
“run and transform” agenda also seeks to build on – leveraging integrated
processes, people and systems to accelerate alignment, improve data usability,
and more tightly connect IT initiatives to tangible business outcomes.
When asked where else Autoliv can move fastest and innovate
further, he points to alignment and adoption. “The emphasis is again on
stronger alignment with the business and a clearer focus on driving business
objectives,” Sethi says, adding that IT should “become more embedded within the
business”, including for supply chain and logistics requirements. As Linge
explained in relation to the command centre, the value lies in moving beyond
siloed views of supply chain data – ensuring teams are not “focused alone on
our supply chain management data,” but instead are able to connect information
across suppliers, customers and financial flows to support more coordinated
decision-making.
Sethi argues the building blocks for this alignment are
already largely in place. “We already have the tools in our arsenal,” he says,
but the priority now is making data more usable and cleaner, creating a single
source of truth, and increasing adoption of existing platforms. The goal, he
adds, is also about consistency: “Anything we do has to consistently be linked
to the business outcome.”
A shared culture
On how IT and business units like supply chain should work
together, Sethi says. “The key mantra going forward is one unified business and
IT team... I don’t want a traditional waterfall approach, where the business
defines requirements and IT simply delivers.”
He links that shift to changes in the technology landscape.
“Those days of heavy coding and large-scale programming are largely behind us,”
he says. “The tools we have today are far more accessible and business friendly.”
That is changing where IT can add value. Sethi says he wants
to “start sitting at the table with business during the discussion” as teams
define problems, rather than arriving later with a technical response.
Part of the plan is to equip business users with enough
digital literacy to use tools directly. “I’m calling them ‘digital agents’,”
Sethi says.
But he argues many organisations still struggle to translate
buzzwords into execution. “Does the
business really understand what robotic process automation is, or where AI
should be applied?” he asks. “People hear these terms all the time, they’ve
become business buzzwords, but do they actually know which tool solves which
problem?”
Sethi therefore sees IT’s job in this model to include
governance and delivery. If business teams need IT to take critical pieces of
work, Sethi says, “we will go up and take those projects and run those
projects”.
He frames the evolving role in consulting terms. “IT needs
to operate more like a consulting partner to the business, staying a step ahead
of the business on technology and showing what’s possible and how it can be
delivered,” he says.
The measure, he adds, is whether IT can reduce friction in
execution by accelerating implementation, lowering costs, and guiding delivery
rather than leaving business teams to navigate the market alone.
That shift also changes the skills needed inside IT. “We
need people with a strong business mindset,” Sethi says, adding that more
technically savvy business professionals could increasingly become part of IT
teams.
The profile he describes is closer to an internal consultant
than a traditional IT role. “I may not need as many coders and developers, but
I do need people who understand the tools and what’s possible to achieve with
them,” he says
Sethi uses the analogy of an orchestra to make the point: IT
and the business need to play together from the outset, not be brought in after
the performance is already planned. “It has to be a collective team, aligned on
the vision, KPIs and what we want to achieve,” he says. “Whether that’s
reducing inventory or improving supply chain visibility, you build on that
through four pillars: tools, people, process and technology.”
Building digital capabilities with partners, not just
suppliers
On the question of external partners, Sethi draws a clear
line between vendors who “provide bodies” for project work and the strategic
partners he is looking for.
“I want to build up our strong partner ecosystem,” he says,
adding: “I'm not looking into the partners who are just providing bodies and
working on a project and transaction.”
What he wants instead is “true strategic partners” that can
bring “best practices on what's been happening in the industry”, and support
reuse rather than bespoke solutions for every plant or function.
That emphasis on reuse reflects the nature of supply chain
challenges, he argues. “Six out of 10 problems are common across the industry,”
Sethi says. The real differentiator, then, is “how much reusability your
partners can bring” – and whether solutions can be adapted and scaled
effectively.
IT is a
competitive differentiator
The shift in mindset, Sethi says, is the hardest part. “The
biggest gap is change management within IT itself,” he explains.
The answer is an IT function that builds expertise around
shared digital tools rather than reinventing solutions from scratch. “To me, IT
is becoming more like an internal consulting organisation, custodians of
digital assets and tools, with the expertise to deliver outcomes more
economically, more quickly and more effectively,” he says.
Sethi’s goal for Autoliv Americas is to build an IT function
that earns its place at that table.
“What’s exciting is building a high-performing,
business-first IT organisation,” Sethi says. For him, that means
something more than deploying technology – it means orchestrating technology,
data, and people into tangible business performance. Operational excellence and
digital transformation aren't competing priorities; IT, he argues, must drive
both.
