The University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), in partnership with Grand-Pa, a division of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), announced the launch of a business management programme aimed at assisting shop owners in growing their existing spaza shops into sustainable businesses.

The Grand-Pa Spaza Academy, which will be run through the GIBS Enterprise Development Academy and the Inclusive Markets Programme (IMP), is a three-month business management certificate programme specifically designed to address the daily challenges faced by many spaza shop owners in managing their small businesses. The sponsored programme, which will start in August 2014, will be offered free of charge to selected spaza shop owners.

Informal spaza shops form an integral part of the South African economy and with proper management this sector has the potential to grow and employ more people. Due to a lack of business skills in the areas of finance, management and marketing, among others, spaza shops often fail to reach their full potential. The Grand-Pa Spaza Academy aims to help spaza shop owners learn the basic management skills required to run their own businesses successfully, and to offer mentoring and coaching that will assist them in applying what they’ve learnt in the classroom to their day-to-day operations. 

Yogavelli Nambiar, director of the newly created Enterprise Development Academy at GIBS, said, “We are excited that Grand-Pa has agreed to sponsor the tuition costs for delegates to this programme in a bid to help small enterprises like spaza shops flourish into bigger and more sustainable businesses.

“We are looking for driven individuals to attend this programme. Applicants must operate a spaza shop that makes at least R300 per day and that is located in the Mamelodi or Ivory Park areas. Lectures will be held once a week at UP’s Mamelodi Campus and the individuals selected to be part of the programme must commit to attending all 12 days of business training over the three-month period.”