The effects vary a lot from one part of the world to another and from one area of business to another. Communications infrastructure is important to modern businesses, but not all countries have got one, this has led to the uneven distribution of the influence of globalization on business across the globe.

1. Meeting consumer expectations and tastes: Generally, consumers all over the world are better informed, have higher incomes and therefore higher and more exacting expectations. This forces businesses to meet higher standards.
2. Economies of scale: Selling into a global market allows for enormous economies of scale, although not all industries benefit from these.
3. Choice of location: Businesses are now much freer to choose where they operate from, and can move to a cheaper and more efficient location. This increased movement of businesses and jobs has, to some extent, forced governments to compete with each other in providing an attractive and low-cost location. One limitation on this is that managers won’t always move to some countries if living conditions are unpleasant or even dangerous.
4. Multi-national and multi-cultural management: This is a major challenge to businesses and their managers. A multi-national business environment is more complex with more variables, and so is more difficult to manage. A multi-cultural employment policy leads to employees of many different nationalities, languages, religions and cultures in different offices across the globe. These employees react in quite different ways to incentives, to motivation and it is very difficult to find managers who are sensitive to all these different factors. It is very easy to inadvertently give offence and demotivate workers.
5. Globalization of markets: National borders are becoming less and less important. Markets stretch across borders and MNCs are well-placed to take advantage of this. Consumers are more alike, but by no mean the same. Many businesses have made expensive mistakes by not taking local variation sufficiently into account. Marketing, in particular, is a minefield because of its dependence on language and culture.