Scanning for the Future

Back in the $1990$s$,$ if one wanted to see a movie, one had three options: go to a theater, watch it on TV $($with commercials$),$ or drive to a video rental store to rent a movie. At the time, there was one dominant chain of movie rental stores, which had a huge market share of the video rental business. As time went by$,$ this chain failed to adapt $($until it was too late$)$ to the kiosk$/$vending machine style of movie rental and video streaming demands of the public. This company, to nobody$$s surprise, is no longer in business. In $1990,$ the idea that they would go out of business was inconceivable; now, it is a reality.

Environmental scanning involves searching one$$s environment for useful information and determining what is and is not useful. There are three aspects of environmental scanning: Scenario development, which involves generating alternatives of how events may unfold in the future; forecasting, which is a single prediction about the future used to make plans; and benchmarking, which is making comparisons to the best in one$$s industry.

Keeping in mind this information, choose the most fitting aspect of environmental scanning that would have helped the $1990$s video rental store to have better adapted to their environment.

$1.$ When video rental revenue began to decline, what aspect of environmental scanning could the company have used to make a single best$-$guess prediction of what revenues would look like over the next five years?