Hey there! Welcome to the Marketer Of The Month blog!

We recently interviewed Jean Lawrence for our monthly podcast – ‘Marketer of the Month’! We had some amazing insightful conversations with Jean and here’s what we discussed about-

1. Fostering 5G and Cloud Adoption: Showcasing successful cases and ROI calculators to encourage traditional firms.

2. Unified Global Marketing: Creating a common purpose and leveraging diverse skills in marketing for global organizations.

3. Distinct Marketing Approaches: Tailoring messaging for enterprises and service providers, emphasizing industry-specific benefits.

4. Future-Proofing 5G: Adapting 5G networks to evolving customer needs, addressing challenges and opportunities.

5. Innovative 5G Opportunities: Exploring the potential of 5G technology across industries.

6. Sustainability & Responsibility: Nokia’s commitment to sustainability and ethical practices, addressing ESG concerns.

About our host:

Dr. Saksham Sharda is the Chief Information Officer at Outgrow.co. He specializes in data collection, analysis, filtering, and transfer by means of widgets and applets. Interactive, cultural, and trending widgets designed by him have been featured on TrendHunter, Alibaba, ProductHunt, New York Marketing Association, FactoryBerlin, Digimarcon Silicon Valley, and at The European Affiliate Summit.

About our guest:

Meet Jean Lawrence – Head of Global Marketing at Nokia Cloud & Network Services. With 25 years of tech industry experience, she has held leadership roles at Oracle, Computer Sciences Corporation, Motorola, and T-Mobile. Jean is dedicated to helping businesses harness the power of 5G and cloud technology for automation, analytics, and new revenue models.

EPISODE 123: The 5G Gold Rush: Nokia’s Vice President for Marketing Jean Lawrence Charts the Next Industry Shift

The Intro!

Saksham Sharda: Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Outgrow’s Marketer of the Month. I’m your host, Dr. Saksham Sharda, and I’m the creative director at Outgrow. co. And for this month we are going to interview Jean Lawrence, who is the Head of Global Marketing at Nokia Cloud & Network Services.

Jean Lawrence: Great to be here. Thank you.

Don’t have time to read? No problem, just watch the Podcast!

Or you can just listen to it on Spotify!

The Rapid Fire Round!

Saksham Sharda: Okay, so let’s start with the rapid fire. At what age do you want to retire?

Jean Lawrence: 75.

Saksham Sharda: What’s your favorite mobile app?

Jean Lawrence: LinkedIn.

Saksham Sharda: How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?

Jean Lawrence: I can do it in five minutes.

Saksham Sharda: Most embarrassing moment of your life?

Jean Lawrence: I was saying my wedding vows and I laughed because I was nervous.

Saksham Sharda: Mountains or beaches?

Jean Lawrence: Mountains.

Saksham Sharda: What’s the most useful mobile feature you can’t live without?

Jean Lawrence: Location.

Saksham Sharda: Favorite color?

Jean Lawrence: Green.

Saksham Sharda: What time of day are you most inspired?

Jean Lawrence: Morning first thing.

Saksham Sharda: How many hours of sleep can you survive on?

Jean Lawrence: For one night, about four, and on a normal basis seven, I need.

Saksham Sharda: Fill in the blank- An upcoming marketing trend is _____.

Jean Lawrence: Everything social.

Saksham Sharda: The city in which the best kiss of your life happened?

Jean Lawrence: In Paris, Of course.

Saksham Sharda: Pick one Android or Apple

Jean Lawrence: Apple.

Saksham Sharda: The biggest mistake of your career?

Jean Lawrence: Not leaning in enough.

Saksham Sharda: How do you relax?

Jean Lawrence: I read.

Saksham Sharda: How many cups of coffee do you drink per day?

Jean Lawrence: About three.

Saksham Sharda: A habit of yours that you hate?

Jean Lawrence: Skip.

Saksham Sharda: The most valuable skill you’ve learned in life?

Jean Lawrence: Listening to try and understand someone else’s perspective.

Saksham Sharda: Cities or countryside?

Jean Lawrence: Cities.

Saksham Sharda: Your favorite Netflix show?

Jean Lawrence: The crown.

The Big Questions!

Saksham Sharda: Okay, that was the rapid fire. Now we’re gonna go to the bigger questions. And these you can answer with as much ease as much length as you’d like. The first one is, how do you convince traditional companies to embrace new technologies like 5G and the cloud, especially when there’s a lot of uncertainty around the potential and ROI?

Jean Lawrence: I think there are two things. One is showing them examples of other customers who have been successful doing that so that they can see their way to a future of doing that. And the second is with tools like total cost of ownership calculators, and ROI calculators, where they can understand the business case.

Saksham Sharda: Okay, and what inspired you to yourself pursue a career in the tech industry? And how did you get started in marketing and product development?

Jean Lawrence: I think this is a fascinating industry, telecom, and technology, I’ve spent my entire career. And I think it’s a great place to do marketing because there’s so much need to take the technology and sort of the engineering IT side of things and translate that into business value. So it’s a great field to do marketing. I started in IT. And then, I got an MBA in marketing and strategy. And I’ve been doing tech marketing ever since.

Saksham Sharda: And as a marketing leader, how do you approach building a cohesive and effective marketing strategy for a global organization like Nokia Cloud and network services?

Jean Lawrence: Yeah, so I love leading the marketing team for cloud and network services. And I think it’s a lot about balancing and finding complementary skills. So we have people in our organization, who are strong, technically, who understand our products very well, and can translate that to business value. We have people who are very strong on campaigns, campaign strategy, and digital, socials, in all of the channels that we go through. So I think it’s all about creating a common sense of purpose. And then bringing people together with the skill sets that they have to understand their roles, understand how they complement each other, and come together to deliver a great outcome for the business.

Saksham Sharda: Can you speak to any specific challenges or opportunities that you’ve encountered in marketing, telecom, and cloud technologies to enterprises versus communications?

Jean Lawrence: It’s a very different game, I have a lot of experience marketing to both enterprises and communication service providers. The difference is that communication service providers are a known audience. There are about 800 of them in the world, we know who they are, and they know who we are. So marketing, there is more of a process of cross-selling, upselling, developing communities of our users, and showing customer success stories. On the enterprise side, every industry is enterprise, and so there’s a lot more digital to find new customers and have new customers find us. And there’s a lot more importance in understanding each industry vertical that we’re targeting and having a message that resonates with the needs of their industry.

Saksham Sharda: How do operators leverage AI and machine learning to optimize their network operations and deliver personalized user experiences?

Jean Lawrence: This is a great topic. And it’s one that at Nokia we’re very involved in, we have a whole suite of solutions that we call Ava, it’s all about analytics, AI, and machine learning. And it solves a wide variety of problems for our customers. I remember a customer told me once a few years ago we are drowning in data, but we’re thirsty for insights. So with this product set, we take all of that network data and help operators make smarter decisions. So a couple of examples. We have an AVA energy efficiency product that uses specialized algorithms and AI to understand where in the network the peaks and the values are using a lot of technology to help operators know when they can turn down certain aspects of the network without impacting user experience so that they can lower their costs and have more sustainability. Similarly, we use AI and ML to help our operators understand how customers are using the network, even in mega events where there are millions of extra people on an account on the network during that period. How do we make sure that they have the data they need to optimize how the network is set up to understand what the customer experiences and even to take it to the next level of monetizing you know these customers are using these applications, these network elements and so now we can offer them something that will be very relevant to them from a marketing perspective as well.

Saksham Sharda: And what do you see as the most exciting opportunities and challenges for the telecom industry in the next 5 to 10 years, particularly concerning 5G?

Jean Lawrence: Well, I think right now, the biggest challenge and opportunity facing our industry is how to monetize 5G. And we as an industry aren’t successful in monetizing 5G, there won’t be a 6G, and there won’t be any money for it. So I think it’s a great opportunity for service providers to work in ecosystems where they’re bringing the value of their networks, moving up the value chain partnering with application developers, companies like Nokia, to create all kinds of new applications that use the 5G network, whether it’s for b2b, b2b2C, b2b2x, all of those scenarios, I think. So there are a lot of challenges ahead in making sure that operators have the agility that they’re using the software as a service that they have, as we said earlier, the AI and ML tools to optimize all of their operations. But I think it’s a very exciting time ahead with both challenges and opportunities with 5G.

Saksham Sharda: What about 5G excites you the most personally?

Jean Lawrence: Oh, I think it’s the fact that there are so many things that we don’t even know what the future will hold. Just as with 4G, you know, we didn’t necessarily predict all of the mobile apps and that kind of thing. So it’s the promise of the future where anyone can innovate, anyone can create the next Uber or the next Netflix, and the network will be here with all of these new capabilities. And it has the potential to transform every industry.

Saksham Sharda: Nokia has a strong focus on sustainability and corporate responsibility. Can you discuss some of the ways in which Nokia is looking to reduce its environmental impact and promote ethical business practices?

Jean Lawrence: Yes, you’re right. It’s a huge area of focus for Nokia, Pekka Lundmark, our CEO, says there’s no green without digital. So what we’re doing is we’re bringing the digital tools to help our customers be more sustainable in their operations, whether it’s things like using AI and ML to reduce energy efficiency or just designing their networks to be as low energy as possible. So, ESG is more than just energy. It’s also about digital inclusion and security, the GSMA has identified multiple KPIs that have to do with ESG. Nokia is involved in all of those helping prevent cyber security breaches, providing the tools to help bridge the digital divide. It’s a hugely important topic for Nokia and our world.

Saksham Sharda: The last question for you is a personal kind. It is, what would you be doing in your life if not this right now?

Jean Lawrence: There’s nothing I’d rather do right now. I feel like I’m exactly where I want to be in this industry and this role, so I like it when I have a little free time. When I do, I like to go for hikes. I hiked the Inca Trail recently in Peru. So there are a lot of things that I enjoy doing outside of work. But from a career perspective, this is right where I want to be right now.

Let’s Conclude!

Saksham Sharda: Thanks, everyone for joining us for this month’s episode of Outgrow’s Marketer of the Month. That was Jean Lawrence, who is the Head of Global Marketing at Nokia Cloud & Network Services.

Jean Lawrence: Pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Saksham Sharda: Check out the website for more details and we’ll see you once again next month with another marketer of the month.