The Infra Push

Business schools are going green and adding IBM analytics labs, Bloomberg terminals to emerge as more attractive destinations.

- Devika Singh

Picture this. Multiple screens in a room flashing stock market updates, currency fluctuations and bond yields with people poring over the information. Complex graphs are showing the trends over the day, months and years. Strange as it may sound, the visual is not that of a trading floor in a stock exchange or a brokerage but a finance lab equipped with Bloomberg terminals at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management (LBSIM), a B-school in New Delhi.

Indeed, LBSIM is not an exception. Management institutes across India have recently been ramping up their infrastructure, adding Bloomberg terminals, IBM Analytics labs and green features into their campuses. While the change has been wrought by industry demand, there is also an added incentive of going up the B-school ranks. LBSIM introduced two Bloomberg terminals in its institute two years back and recently upgraded to 12 terminals. The institute also houses an IBM Analytics Lab in its campus at the national capital. “Management education has to be tailored to the need of the hour. Of course, there will a focus on the basics of business and economics but corporates also want you to learn new technologies, develop new skills and adjust to the new environment,” says Dr. G.L Sharma, Professor, Finance and Accounting at LBSIM. To survive, B-schools need to adopt new skills and offer a faculty in sync with the changing times, he adds.