Built to Last: How Phil Cutting Turned Integrity into a 35-Year Business
Featuring: Phil Cutting, Commercial Lighting
"I can't bear seeing a perfectly good light fitting thrown away."
Walk along Regent Street after dark, admire the floodlit façade of Lincoln Cathedral, or step inside a sensitively restored historic church, and there's every chance you're seeing Phil Cutting's work - without ever knowing it.
For more than 35 years, Commercial Lighting Systems has quietly illuminated some of Britain's most recognisable buildings. Yet if you ask Phil what has made the company successful, he won't talk about landmark projects or impressive clients.
Instead, he'll talk about value.
Not simply financial value, but doing things properly. Spending money wisely. Building relationships that last decades. Repairing rather than replacing. Creating products that outlive trends.
In a business world that often celebrates rapid growth and disruption, Phil has built something rather different: a company founded on patience, trust and long-term thinking.
Learning Business the Hard Way
Phil grew up in Hampshire as the youngest of six brothers. School wasn't always straightforward, and after briefly planning to continue into sixth form and university, his future changed with a conversation that has stayed with him ever since.
His father, himself a businessman, offered some unexpected advice. "You could spend two years at college, come out with qualifications and still not get a job... or you could go and get a job now."
It wasn't the encouragement many parents would have given, but it proved to be a defining moment. Phil joined an electrical wholesaler as a storeman, sweeping floors, moving stock and learning every part of the business from the ground up.
"It taught me that if I wanted to earn more money, I had to create more value."
Without formal qualifications beyond school, he progressed steadily through hard work and practical experience, eventually becoming the company's youngest-ever branch manager. Looking back, he sees those early years as his real education.
Discovering an Industry Few People Ever See
While working in electrical wholesale, Phil developed an interest in commercial lighting—an industry that most people rarely think about. "When people think about lighting, they think about changing a bulb at home," he smiles. "Our world is completely different."
Commercial Lighting Systems doesn't simply sell light fittings. The company works with architects, lighting designers and consulting engineers to develop lighting schemes long before a building is constructed. Once specified into a project, those products become part of the building itself.
It is an industry where technical knowledge matters, but relationships matter even more.
Phil's move to Osram, one of the world's leading lighting manufacturers, gave him deep technical expertise in emerging low-energy lighting technologies. It also introduced him to the network of designers and consultants who would shape his future career.
Seeing Opportunity in Someone Else's Crisis
Before founding Commercial Lighting Systems, Phil worked for an ambitious lighting manufacturer that appeared to be flourishing. The reality was very different.
Rapid expansion had outpaced financial control. New offices, overseas ventures and ambitious investment had left the business dangerously overstretched. "It should have been turning over ten million," Phil recalls. "The owner was spending the money as though it already was."
Rather than waiting for the inevitable collapse, Phil proposed an alternative. He would take responsibility for one of the company's specialist product ranges, assume its supplier commitments, and continue supporting existing customers through a new business.
It was not a dramatic leap into entrepreneurship. There was no grand business plan or outside investment, other than loans from supportive family members! Instead, it was a carefully considered decision built on trust, credibility and years of industry relationships.
That decision became Commercial Lighting Systems.
Growing Slowly—and Sleeping Better
Thirty-five years later, Phil has no regrets about choosing the slower path. "I don't mind spending money," he says. "I just want to get value from it."
Watching some of the financial decisions made during his father's business career—and later witnessing the consequences of overtrading first-hand—reinforced one simple principle.
Growth only matters if it is sustainable. That philosophy still shapes every decision the company makes today. While many businesses chase turnover, Phil focuses on profitability, resilience and maintaining the flexibility to weather economic uncertainty.
It is perhaps one of the reasons Commercial Lighting Systems has remained independently owned while many competitors have disappeared or been absorbed into larger groups.
Sustainability Before Sustainability Was Fashionable
One of the clearest examples of Phil's thinking is the company's refurbishment programme. Traditionally, ageing lighting installations would simply be replaced. Commercially, that often represents the more profitable option.
Phil disagrees. "I can't bear seeing what's fundamentally a perfectly good light fitting thrown away." Instead, Commercial Lighting Systems refurbishes existing fittings, replacing outdated technology with modern LED systems while retaining the original housing.
The approach reduces waste, lowers costs and preserves the architectural character of heritage buildings. Universities, churches and commercial estates across the UK have all benefited from this approach.
Long before circular economy became fashionable, Phil had already concluded that repairing good products simply made more sense. "It might earn us less on one project," he says, "but it's the right thing to do."
Relationships That Outlast Projects
Throughout our conversation, one theme kept returning: People.
Phil openly describes managers who taught him valuable lessons—sometimes by showing him exactly how not to behave. He remembers those who broke promises just as clearly as those who honoured them.
Those experiences shaped the culture he wanted to build. Today, many of Commercial Lighting Systems' employees have spent decades with the business. Customers return project after project, often over many years.
In specification lighting, trust is earned slowly and lost quickly. Phil has spent a career protecting it.
Looking Forward
Technology continues to transform the lighting industry. LED innovation, intelligent controls and sustainability targets are changing how buildings are designed and operated.
Commercial Lighting Systems continues to evolve alongside those changes while remaining true to the principles that have guided the company since 1991.
Manufacturing remains rooted in Hampshire, combining British craftsmanship with modern engineering, while the company increasingly supports refurbishment and retrofit projects that extend the life of existing installations rather than replacing them unnecessarily.
For Phil, progress has never been about chasing every opportunity. It has been about choosing the right ones.
Advice for Future Entrepreneurs
Asked what advice he would give aspiring business owners, Phil's answer is refreshingly understated.
Work hard. Learn your industry properly. Value your reputation. Don't spend money simply because you can.
His career offers a powerful reminder that successful businesses are not always built by moving fastest. Sometimes they are built by thinking furthest ahead.