EVI is an acronym for "early supplier involvement", which means that material manufacturers get involved in the early R&D stage of downstream users, fully understand the requirements of users for the performance of raw materials, and thus provide customers with higher-performance materials and personalized services. JFE Group believes that in today's increasingly homogeneous products, the pursuit of differentiated competition is the key for enterprises to get out of the low-level homogeneous competition. It should be said that EVI is a business thinking mode worthy of key consideration by iron and steel enterprises.

Through the EVI project, iron and steel enterprises have established an inseparable partnership with downstream manufacturers, which will make iron and steel enterprises occupy the commanding heights in the future product marketing. In the past, iron and steel enterprises did not do enough in market segmentation, blindly following the market led to product convergence. Marketing mainly focuses on publicity and promotion, and then extends to sales channels, with special emphasis on price factors. So every time the market is depressed, the price war between enterprises breaks out frequently. Of course, as a bulk basic raw material, steel production scale and cost price are very important to the operation of steel enterprises, but in order to be invincible in market competition, enterprises must constantly enhance their ability to resist risks. Through the EVI project, steel mills can get in touch with downstream users at zero distance, make clear the personalized consumption needs of users, and then develop personalized products according to the needs, avoid the possible disconnection between products and market demand, get rid of the vicious competition of homogenized products, and truly and effectively integrate marketing into product research and development. EVI project has become one of the key ways to enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises in the future, which is helpful to achieve a win-win situation for upstream and downstream enterprises.

In the future, after participating in customers' EVI projects, iron and steel enterprises will even have the opportunity to undertake the processing and production of some parts from downstream manufacturers and provide customers with more personalized services. In terms of processing equipment, production management and automation level, iron and steel enterprises have great comprehensive advantages and can make full use of these resources for large-scale and specialized production. This will not only enable customers to divest their non-core or non-operating advantages, concentrate their advantages to enhance their core competitiveness and save costs, but also expand the profit model of iron and steel enterprises. For example, the cooperation between JFE and ThyssenKrupp has been devoted to the EVI project. ThyssenKrupp mainly participated in the early research and development stage of new models and new parts by Japanese automakers and parts suppliers, thus eventually providing customers with high-performance tailor-welded blanks.