Impact of Business Strategy and Human Resource Management on the Competitiveness of Millennial Women Micro-Entrepreneurs in Medan

-Poverty has been a major problem for millennial women in North Sumatra and becoming micro-entrepreneurs appears to be an effective solution to overcome it. This study aims to determine the impact of business strategy and human resource management on the competitiveness of small businesses owned by millennial women in Medan City. Respondents in this study were a list of women who owned and ran businesses located in the city of Medan. In total, 77 respondents were involved in this study by considering the aspects of age, last education, length of business, business capital, source of fund, and business sector. Based on the results of questionnaire data processing which was conducted by applying data quality test, descriptive statistical analysis, classical assumption test, multiple linear regression analysis


INTRODUCTION
Poverty is a very complex phenomenon from various dimensions of life. Poverty is a term that indicates a state of lack of material and income. This lack disables people from carrying out activities in social life. Soekanto (2012) states that poverty is defined as a condition in which a person is unable to maintain himself under the living standard of the community and is also unable to utilize his mental and physical energy in the community.
Based on a survey conducted by North Sumatra Statistics Center (2019), there are 600,000 poor women in North Sumatra. The majority of them were born in the 80s and 90s and are categorized as millennials. Becoming a small entrepreneur appears to be one solution to overcoming poverty among women. Running a small business as a millennial woman is expected to reduce poverty. Warr (2000) states that small business is a solution that enables people to get income, work, and wages.
Therefore, an individual in the context of poverty should see opportunities from everyone in obtaining the existing resources and opportunities such as running a culinary business since millennials, particularly in the culinary sector, seem to be active, showing creativity and innovation and applying digitalization in online marketing and mentally holding the spirit of an entrepreneur which is shown by self-confidence and having a strong will to work. The differences in mindset and technology acceptability between the baby-boom generation who was born in the 60s and 70s and the millennial who was born in the 80s and 90s lead to a need for more research on business strategies and human resources focusing on the millennials in the city of Medan. A study on business strategy conducted by Sibarani and Dalimunthe (2020) shows that product quality, product value, and online marketing were still not optimally carried out by millennial entrepreneurs.
Competitiveness among entrepreneurs should be a strength that leads to superior products and a unique value when compared to products from other similar entrepreneurs in the market. An entrepreneur in doing his business should have and apply creativity and innovation in creating solutions to problems and opportunities while running the business every day (Zimmerer, 2008). The owners of small businesses must possess management capabilities, especially human resource management in (1) administration such as recording and archiving things related to business activities, (2) operators that carry out the business activities and manage the existing resources efficiently, (3) human resource management that emphasize the strategic and long-term role of human resource. Priyono and Pranaka in Maulina (2013), Suryadewi, et.al (2014) Khera (2015) states that human resource can strategically increase activities within the organization and induce individual development to acquire the ability to complete work, be responsible, and have the competence to provide services for customers.
This notion indicates that human resource has a significant contribution to the organization which is a transformational process in the growth and development of the human resource itself and as a result may lead to positive competitiveness for the products in the market. The problem faced by entrepreneurs, especially small entrepreneurs in running their businesses, is the lack of ability to do digital marketing in stepping up their businesses resulting in difficulty to obtain a larger market share (Dalimunthe, 2018).
This study is also a Research Master Plan (RIP) of Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) which aims to provide research references at USU to improve human welfare and to encourage economic growth and regional development which is integrated into the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI). This study applied a research development procedure related to improving human welfare, encouraging economic growth, and regional development in an integrated manner.
The existence of a competitive product enables an entrepreneur to overcome limitations, create a business strategy and pay attention to the existing human resource in the company which consists of those who have the capabilities in business management. According to Kotler (2003), an entrepreneur must be able to identify competitors from the point of view of the market identification, so that the products may be easily accepted by the market. The existence of a business strategy poses a plan and a series of decisions that are produced through a formulation and implementation process that aims to induce the competitiveness of the company (Wheelen & Hunger, 2012). Strategic management is applied to see new and unique opportunities. Therefore, the entrepreneurs must have a business strategy and human resource management that possess a strategic view of business activities and at the same time encourage economic growth and regional development in an integrated manner under the Research Master Plan (RIP) of USU.
This study is also meant to trigger more exploration of the potential of small businesses in the city of Medan so that the government may implement advantageous policies for millennial woman entrepreneurs. In addition, Universitas Sumatera Utara as a State University in Medan City must have a role in improving the welfare of the millennial women generation in the community. During the COVID-19 period, the effort that needs to be done is to encourage the role of small businesses in overcoming poverty that occurs as a result of a decline in the number of workers, especially female workers.
This makes starting a business an alternative to improving the regional economy and empowering the community (Dalimunthe, 2018). Small entrepreneurs need to improve their business strategies by using digital marketing in obtaining a wider market which makes it necessary to look for a more efficient development model in obtaining long-term business strategies for the millennial women generation. The COVID-19 pandemic may pose new challenges in running a business but it also opens up new opportunities that can lead to a long-term sustainable business for millennial women.

Types of Research
This research was conducted in the form of experimental design research applying a qualitative and quantitative approach to the millennial women who own small businesses in the city of Medan.

Data Type
In this research, the primary data was collected directly from the research object in the form of interviews and observations.

Data Collection Method
The data and information were obtained from textbooks, journals, and e-journals related to the field of research.

a. Interview
Interviews were conducted on the millennial women who own small businesses in Medan City.

b. Observation
In addition to conducting interviews, researchers also conducted observations on the research object which is the millennial women who own small businesses in Medan City.

Data Analysis Technique a. Descriptive Analysis Method
The collected data were analyzed by applying the qualitative descriptive analysis method. Qualitative descriptive analysis is an analytical method of carefully looking for a thorough relation among certain aspects in a given condition.
The data was factually collected, compiled, classified, and interpreted in a problem-solving direction to be studied to get an overview and information regarding the subject matter.

b. Research Instruments
The questionnaires consisting of a list of questions were made by the research team based on the aspects of business strategy and human resource management in seeing the competitiveness of the small businesses owned by the millennial women in the city of Medan. The aspect of business strategy consists of product quality, product value, and digital marketing. The aspect of human resource management covers the administrative roles in the process of archiving, operational activities related to occupational health and Safety including wages and salaries as well as labor recruitment, and the strategic role of human resource management toward long-term problems in carrying out Individual development, work completion, responsibilities, and the transformational process in the human resource itself. And the competitiveness was evaluated based on the price and uniqueness of a product through the customers' satisfaction. The Likert scale was used in every question.

Results and Discussion
This study uses data obtained from the results of distributing questionnaires to 77 respondents. The respondent characteristics used in this study were seen from age, last education, length of business, business capital, the source of funds, and the business sector as listed in tables 1 to 6.  Table 1 shows that the respondents were dominated by millennial women aged 31-40 by 33 people covering 43% of the total respondents. Respondents with the age of <20 are only 2 people (3%), the age of 21-30 are 22 people (28%), while those at the age of >40 are 20 people (26%). The numbers indicate that in general, the respondents were at their productive age.  Table 2 shows that the respondents were mostly high school graduates 43 people (56%) and 21 people (27%) with a bachelor's degree, while only 1 person (1%) was an elementary school graduate, 2 people (3%) were junior high school graduates and 10 people (13%) with a diploma. The fact that the majority of respondents were senior high school and college graduates indicates that the respondents had quite a concern about education.  Table 3 shows that 38 people which is 49% of the respondents had just started their business for less than 5 years, 29 people (38%) for 5-10 years, and 10 people (13%) for >10 years. These numbers indicate that there were many new businesses started by millennial women in recent years.  Table 4 shows that the majority of business capital in running the small business was between IDR 5,000,000 -IDR 20,000,000 by 34 people (44%), 30 people (39%) with business capital lower than IDR 5,000,000 and 13 people (17%) with higher than IDR 20,000,000. This means that most small businesses can operate with medium business capital ranging from IDR 5,000,000 to IDR 20,000,000.  Table 5 shows that the majority of respondents built their businesses with personal funds 60 people (78%), 12 people (16%) received funds from parents/families, while 5 people (6%) got the fund from a bank loan. Furthermore, it is known that on average the respondents ran a kind of fish-salting business.  Table 6 shows that the food/culinary sector was the dominant sector with 53 people (69%), and the rest were 9 people (12%) in the service sector, 6 people (8%) in the creative economy, 3 people (4%) in the convection sector, 3 people (4%) in the handy craft sector, 2 people (2%) in the optical business, and 1 person (1%) in agribusiness. It is very obvious that on average the respondents ran a small business in the food/culinary sector.
Source: Research Questionnaire 2021  Below is the elaboration of the data presented in the table above. 1. The business strategy variable had a total sample of 77, with a minimum value of 33, a maximum value of 50, a mean (average value) of 43.04, and a standard deviation of 3.813. 2. The human resource management variable had a total sample of 77, with a minimum value of 30, a maximum value of 50, a mean (average value) of 42.75, and a standard deviation of 4.551. 3. The competitiveness variable had a total sample of 77, with a minimum value of 36, a maximum value of 50, a mean (average value) of 43.91, and a standard deviation of 3.997.

Classical Assumption Test Results
The classical assumption test was carried out to ensure that in this study there was no multicollinearity, and heteroscedasticity and the resulting data had a normal distribution. If there was no multicollinearity and heteroscedasticity found, then the classical assumption had been fulfilled. a. Normality Test   The histogram graph in Figure 3 shows that the data distribution follows a bell-shaped curve that does not skew to the left or right which indicates that data was normally distributed.
Source: The data were processed by using SPSS.

Figure 4 Normality Test 3
The probability plot graph in Figure 4 shows that the data (presented by dots) spread around the diagonal line and follows the direction of the diagonal line which is an indication that the data was normally distributed. The test results from both the histogram and normal probability plot graph are in line with the test results from the Kolmogorov-Smirnov model which proves that there was no oddity in the data distribution and the data was indeed distributed normally. These test results make it possible to further conduct other classical assumption tests. b. Multicollinearity Test ,661 1,513

Figure 5 Heteroscedasticity Test
The output of the heteroscedasticity test in Figure 5 shows that there is no clear pattern, and the points spread above and below the number 0 on the Y-axis. The output indicates that there is no heteroscedasticity found in the data.

Multiple Linear Regression Analysis
The analysis used in this study is linear regression analysis to determine the relationship between business strategy and human resource management on competitiveness  Table 11, the value of Adjusted R Square was 0.510, which means 0.510 or (51%) of the independent variables, namely business strategy and human resource management, were able to describe competitiveness. Meanwhile, the remaining 49% was described or explained by other variables that were not included in the research model.  Table 12, the Fcalculated value was 40.508 with a significance level of 0.000. Ftable was obtained by calculation by looking at the values of the degrees of freedom df1 (n1) and df2 (n2). The formula was df1 = 2 and df2 = 74, so Ftable was 3.12. This means that Fcalculated = 40.508 > Ftable = 3.12 with a significance level of < 0.05 = 0.000. Therefore, the variables of business strategy and human resource management simultaneously or jointly affect the competitiveness of small businesses owned by millennial women in Medan City.

c. Partial Test Results (t-Statistic Test)
The basis for decision-making was based on its significance. If the significance value is < 0.05, then the independent variable partially has a significant effect on the dependent variable and vice versa, as well as the ttable considerations in this study. Respondents in this study consisted of 77 data with the number of variables totaling 3 and df or 74 degrees of freedom. The ttable was 1.99254.  Table 13 describes the results of the t-test in this study as follows. 1. The significance level for the business strategy variable was 0.057, greater than 0.05, and the tcalculated was 1.932 < 1.99254. These results indicated that the business strategy in this study had no significant effect on competitiveness.