Surplus causes disequilibrium in the supply and demand of a product. This imbalance means that the product cannot flow through the market efficiently. However, the cycle of surplus and shortage has a way of balancing itself out.
Environmental scanning is the term used to describe the acquisition and use of information gleaned from sources external to your company. Scanning can be thought of as a form of early-warning radar that lets managers look into the future.
The factors which need to be considered for environmental scanning are events, trends, issues and expectations of the different interest groups. Issues are often forerunners of trend breaks. A trend break could be a value shift in society, a technological innovation that might be permanent or a paradigm change. Issues are less deep-seated and can be 'a temporary short-lived reaction to a social phenomenon'. A trend can be defined as an âenvironmental phenomenon that has adopted a structural characterâ.