Winning Hawaii RFP Strategies: Navigate with Ease

Hawaii runs three separate systems, and you need all three. HIePRO is the state's eProcurement platform — for solicitations posted there, only offers submitted through HIePRO can be considered. HANDS is the public notice board for everything procured outside HIePRO, and it needs no login. And Hawaii Compliance Express is the compliance check an agency must clear before it can award you anything. Below the state, Hawaii is the simplest local landscape in the country: four county governments, and no incorporated cities at all.

That last point catches almost every mainland bidder. Hawaii is the only state with no incorporated places recognized by the Census Bureau. Waipahu, Kaneohe, Mililani Town, East Honolulu and Ewa Gentry are population centers, not governments — they have no mayor, no council and no purchasing department, so they cannot issue an RFP. Every dollar of local procurement in Hawaii runs through one of four county governments. Once you know that, the state stops looking complicated and starts looking unusually tractable.

What Do You Need to Know Before Bidding in Hawaii?

• Get compliant before you win, not after. State agencies must obtain proof of compliance through Hawaii Compliance Express (HCE) before making an award — awards may only be made to vendors compliant with state law. A Certificate of Vendor Compliance can be required on purchases as small as $2,500. This is the step that strands otherwise winning bids.
• Register in HIePRO, and submit there. For any solicitation posted in HIePRO, only offers submitted through HIePRO may be considered. Emailing a beautifully written proposal to the buyer does not count. HIePRO uses a single sign-on account across eHawaii.gov services and is free to register.
• Watch HANDS as well as HIePRO. Plenty of Hawaii procurement happens outside HIePRO, and those notices appear on HANDS instead. Watching only one of the two means missing a category of work entirely.
• Four counties, no cities. All local government in Hawaii sits at county level: the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii County, Maui County and Kauai County. There is no municipal layer beneath them, which means four vendor registrations cover every local buyer in the state — a coverage job that would take hundreds of registrations almost anywhere else.

Who Actually Buys in Hawaii?

The population centers — and which county buys for them

1. Honolulu — the state's largest population center and the seat of the City and County of Honolulu, the one consolidated city-county government in Hawaii and by far the largest local buyer
2. East Honolulu — a census-designated place on Oʻahu; procurement runs through the City and County of Honolulu
3. Pearl City — Oʻahu; City and County of Honolulu, plus significant federal activity nearby at Pearl Harbor
4. Hilo — the seat of Hawaii County on the Big Island, so county solicitations are issued from here
5. Kailua — Oʻahu; City and County of Honolulu
6. Waipahu — Oʻahu; City and County of Honolulu, and the location of the Department of Education's Procurement and Contracts Branch
7. Kaneohe — Oʻahu; City and County of Honolulu
8. Mililani Town — Oʻahu; City and County of Honolulu
9. Kahului — Maui; Maui County procures here, and post-disaster reconstruction work on Maui runs through the county and the state rather than any town
10. Ewa Gentry — Oʻahu; City and County of Honolulu

The four counties that actually procure

1. City and County of Honolulu — covers all of Oʻahu and holds the large majority of the state's population, so the large majority of its local procurement: transit, roads, facilities, parks, water and wastewater, emergency services
2. Hawaii County — the Big Island, seat at Hilo; volcanic hazard response, roads across a very large land area, water systems and parks
3. Maui County — Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi under one county government, with a heavy ongoing weighting toward recovery, housing and infrastructure work
4. Kauai County — the smallest of the four by population, which also means the fewest bidders competing for its work

Where Are Hawaii RFPs Published?

• The State Procurement Office. The SPO coordinates and oversees procurement for the executive branch, and its procurement notices and bidding opportunities page is the right place to start. SPO also publishes the vendor guide, the statewide price and vendor lists, and the rules that govern how all of this works — worth an hour before your first bid rather than after your first loss.
• HIePRO, for anything posted in HIePRO. The Hawaii State eProcurement system is where agencies post solicitations and vendors submit offers. Register to receive notifications matching what you sell, and note the hard rule: for solicitations issued in HIePRO, only offers submitted in HIePRO may be considered. Late submissions are not accepted regardless of circumstances.
• HANDS, for everything else — including the counties and the schools. For procurements outside HIePRO, HANDS is the notice board, and it gathers notices from multiple state and county procurement platforms in one place with no login required. The Hawaii State Department of Education advertises on both HANDS and HIePRO, which matters because HIDOE runs a decentralized purchasing system: individual schools and offices issue their own purchase orders up to their authorization, and only purchases of $25,000 or more require formal competition and public advertisement through its Procurement and Contracts Branch.

How Do the Three Hawaii Systems Fit Together?

Think of them as find, submit, and qualify. HANDS is where you find notices, across the state and the counties, free and without an account. HIePRO is where you submit — free to register, single sign-on across eHawaii.gov services, and mandatory for the solicitations it hosts. Hawaii Compliance Express is where you qualify: an agency cannot award you a contract until it has verified your compliance status through HCE, and that verification can be required on purchases as low as $2,500. Most vendors set up the first two and forget the third until an award is sitting on the table.

Of the three, HANDS is the one worth exploring beyond its obvious use. Its bidding opportunities page lists current solicitations, requests for information and other notices for goods, services, construction, and health and human services across the state. But it also lets you search contract awards and view opportunities by category, so you can see which categories the state has actually been buying rather than guessing. What it does for you:

• See every advertised opportunity to do business with the State of Hawaii and its counties in one place
• One interface for both solicitation notices and award notices, so you can research who won as easily as what is open
• Manage and track your Hawaii Compliance Express status, which is the thing that gates an award
• No cost and no login required to browse

How Do You Find Hawaii RFPs Efficiently?

• Define Your Area of Interest: Government RFPs span various industries and services. Narrow down your search by specifying your area of expertise and the type of projects you are interested in. In addition to keywords, you can also filter your results by using quotations around the words or using the plus sign to increase filtering through your searches.
• Try Different Search Configurations: If you are not getting the results you’re expecting in your searches, try and mix it up. Think of other words or phrases that could describe the project you are looking for and use those in your search.
• Set Up Saved Search: a Saved Search runs automatically and emails you new matches each morning, and HIePRO will notify registered vendors of solicitations matching what you sell. Set up both. If picking keywords is the hard part, a Match profile describes your business once and surfaces what fits.
• Check Multiple Sites: While the major state RFP sites are a good starting point, don't limit yourself to these platforms.
• Favorite Bids: As a Bid Banana user, you can favorite bids that you find during your search. This not only saves you time from not having to redo your search, but it also allows you to build out a pipeline of potential projects for you to go after.
• Contact the Issuing Agency: If you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out to the issuing agency's designated contact.
• Prepare a Strong Proposal: Crafting a compelling and well-organized proposal is vital to stand out from other bidders. Tailor your proposal to meet the specific needs outlined in the RFP, highlight your unique qualifications, and demonstrate your capability to deliver on the project requirements. 
• Be Persistent: Winning government contracts through RFPs can be a competitive process. Rejection is a part of the game, but don't get discouraged. Use each experience to improve your proposals and increase your chances.

How Do You Watch All of It at Once?

Bid Banana searches 1.6 million bid pages across all 50 states, updated daily, so a single keyword-and-filter search reaches state agency, county, school and university solicitations together. For Hawaii that means you are not choosing between watching HIePRO and watching HANDS and remembering the four counties — one search covers the ground while you keep the official registrations open for submission and notification.

Filter to Hawaii and narrow by agency, industry or NAICS code, then save the search so new Hawaii bids arrive by email each morning. It is $49.99 a month or $479.99 a year, with a 7-day free trial.

Where Should You Start With Hawaii RFPs?

Four steps, in order. Register in HIePRO, because you cannot submit without it. Get your Hawaii Compliance Express status current, because no agency can award to you until it is. Bookmark HANDS, because it is free and covers what HIePRO does not. Then register with whichever of the four counties you can actually serve — four registrations is the entire local landscape, which is not true of any other state. Bid Banana is $49.99 per month or $479.99 per year for the whole database, and new users get a 7-day free trial — enough time to see what Hawaii actually posts in your category.

Pomaika'i, or Good luck!