Autoliv Americas, Nitin Sethi
How Nitin Sethi is putting IT at the heart of Autoliv Americas by shifting IT from function to partner
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.
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
The skills gap Sethi describes is not unique to Autoliv. Ford’s approach to digital supply chain strategy has pointed to the same imperative, and the difficulty of aligning logistics, IT and operations teams around shared objectives remains one of the most consistent themes across the industry.
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.
As Automotive Logistics’ chief content officer Christopher Ludwig noted at Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain Digital Strategies North America 2025, the road to digital maturity begins as much with culture as with code, and what separates the companies making progress is the internal architecture of mindset, teams and processes that allows data to drive decisions.
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.
