In this exclusive interview with MarTechAI.com, Deepak Oram, Head of MarTech at HDFC Bank, offers an inside view of the evolving MarTech Grid at India's largest private sector bank. Oram explores how intelligence, empathy, and ethical AI are transforming customer experiences. From personalized journeys and cross-functional leadership to the changing skillset of modern marketers, this conversation dives deep into how MarTech operates at national scale.

You’ve seen the evolution of MarTech from close quarters. Where do we stand today with so many tools in the market?

It’s been almost a decade of astounding speed in how technology has entered marketing. We’re no longer in an age where it's just about picking the right tool. Now, it’s about how creatively you stitch tools together.

In your personal life, you might use Perplexity to search for something, save it in a Google notebook, then run queries on it. You’re already using multiple tools in sequence. The same is happening in marketing. People are building their own drafters, connectors, and micro tools on top of foundational MarTech. There will always be thousands of branded tools globally, but millions of marketer-crafted tools are being developed internally.

Base tools matter. They’re your foundation. But everything above that is left to the imagination of the marketer. That’s what’s exciting.

But doesn’t that level of fragmentation make the customer journey, and the marketer’s job, overly complex?

It does, and that’s not a bad thing. Think of a great restaurant or a hotel. The front-end service is seamless, but there's a complex machine running in the back.

Customer experience is no different. If you want magical CX, you have to handle complexity in the backend. That's your competitive edge. If your MarTech stack is plain vanilla, it won't differentiate you. Your secret sauce, your edge, is in the rigor and complexity of your approach.

Does HDFC Bank’s MarTech stack reflect that complexity?

Absolutely. HDFC Bank is a large, diverse, and legacy-rich organization. Building something that works at our scale requires perseverance and persistence. We’re driven by passion to do the best for our customers. So yes, it’s complicated. But it’s complexity by design, to serve a purpose.

At that scale, is your tech investment focused more on retention and CX rather than acquisition?

Banking is all about keeping your most valuable customers for decades. Marketing here is about reacting to customer needs and making them feel like we care.

Great CX leads to business. Whether it's through a relationship manager or the app, it’s all connected. When all of that works together—branches, RMs, and the app—you’ve got real impact. And that's why marketing today is increasingly a CX function.

Industry leaders tell us 20 to 25 percent of their marketing budget goes into tech. What’s the trend at HDFC Bank?

It’s hard to peg a specific percentage because our campaigns range from digital to on-ground activations, like launching a branch in your neighborhood.

But I’ll say this—the growth rate in tech spends is very high. Customers are increasingly using digital, and so are we. And every investment is ROI-led. We don’t invest in tools unless they drive value.

Where do we stand today on empathy in marketing, beyond just intelligence?

Banks, because of their data, can detect shifts in customer life stages. If someone suddenly starts saving money, we know they’re preparing for something—maybe marriage, maybe a child.

So intelligence is being able to identify that behavior through data. Empathy is when we use the right tone and the right content for the right life stage. Whether someone is young at heart, risk-averse, or self-employed, how we talk to them must reflect that.

That’s where inspiration and personalization come in. If we do this right, we don’t just sell a product. We become their financial partner through life.

And where does privacy sit in all of this? When does personalization cross the line?

It’s simple. Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want done to you.

You don’t take data without consent. You don’t misuse it. For us, it’s not just about compliance. It’s about customer trust. Never put profits before people. Don’t chase short-term gains that could hurt the brand or the customer relationship.

With so many stakeholders—the CMO, CIO, CTO—who really owns the MarTech stack today?

That’s like asking who owns the customer. Is it the product manager, the marketer, or the engineer?

Today, several functions own a part of the customer's experience and relationship, and the same is true for MarTech.

It’s a privilege, actually. I get to influence and learn from every CXO I work with. That’s what makes MarTech impactful. It affects scale, revenue, and agility.

There’s a growing skill gap in MarTech. Marketers now need to understand data, code, and tools. How do we bridge this?

I’ve thought about this deeply over the last decade.

Not every marketer should know everything. You don’t need to be a creative person to become a data scientist, or a data scientist to become a storyteller. That’s not practical.

Instead, you build teams like an assembly line. One person handles data science, one handles content, one handles campaign orchestration. Together, they build a seamless customer journey.

It’s the age of hyper-specialization. Build the right team mix. Don’t burden individuals with everything.

Can you share one data point that captures the transformation you’ve seen over the years?

Yes, and this one still amazes me.

Before customers even engage directly, they explore online. They visit our site, search on YouTube, or download our app. That pre-engagement footprint is now a rich source of intelligence sitting in tools like Google Analytics.

And yet, many brands under-leverage that data. I believe that’s where the next wave of MarTech optimization lies.