How Phoenix Lighting Simultaneously Executed an Acquisition, Product Expansion, and ERP Transformation in Seven Months
A single governed program kept three converging initiatives aligned and on schedule, without disrupting the business.
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Walter SwensonManaging Partner, Portfolio Leader 
Jonathan MaManaging Director, Engagement Leader 
Natalie DudinaManaging Director, ERP Migration Leader Phoenix Lighting builds fixtures for demanding environments across energy, marine, infrastructure, and heavy industry. As leadership pursued its next stage of growth, three major initiatives converged at once.
The company set out to acquire Rig-A-Lite, expand its product portfolio with the former Cree Lighting lines, and replace its legacy ERP. Each initiative had a clear strategic purpose. Together, they created a significant execution challenge.
Three growth priorities, one business to keep running
Finance leaders needed to support integration while testing the new ERP. Operations teams needed to prepare for new products while fulfilling existing orders. Decisions about shared services and organizational responsibilities affected both integration plans and system readiness.
Success depended on understanding how a decision, delay, or resource constraint in one initiative would affect the others, and acting before it disrupted execution. Phoenix engaged CFGI’s PMO Services to bring that enterprise view and the hands-on leadership needed to move the work forward.
Connecting strategy to an executable program
CFGI established a unified program structure across eight integrated workstreams, connecting transaction milestones, product readiness, ERP deployment, and operating-model decisions in one view. The PMO made ownership and dependencies explicit, giving Phoenix leadership a shared understanding of what needed to happen, who was accountable, and which decisions required attention.
Executive reporting and recurring governance forums translated detailed workstream activity into priorities, risks, and actions. Leadership could assess competing demands on the same people and resolve issues with visibility into the broader program, while workstream teams could see how their deliverables affected other teams and the company’s critical milestones. CFGI paired this coordination with direct support across the underlying work.
Four focus areas, one connected plan
Within that structure, CFGI led hands-on delivery across four focus areas, each tied back to the shared milestones, owners, and dependencies the PMO was leading.
Diligence through commercial launch
Commercial diligence, licensing negotiations, and financial modeling for the former Cree Lighting product lines. Interviews with suppliers, customers, and sales representatives brought market perspective into revenue planning, connected to inventory and asset transitions, manufacturing readiness, and launch requirements.
From pilot to go-live
Readiness assessments, Conference Room Pilot coordination, and user acceptance testing, plus cutover and hypercare planning, connecting system deployment to the readiness of the people and processes that would operate it.
Decision rights & shared services
Working sessions on decision rights, accountability, and shared-service models. Those decisions informed how the expanded organization would work and who would own execution across entities.
Day 1 through Day 100
Day 1 through Day 100 plans and enterprise transition roadmaps translated integration objectives into sequenced activities, responsibilities, and communications.
Senior CFGI practitioners remained embedded alongside Phoenix leadership throughout the engagement. As priorities shifted, they brought context across the workstreams to help teams assess the implications, resolve dependencies, and maintain momentum.
Delivering the milestones and building execution capacity
Phoenix completed the Rig-A-Lite acquisition, integrated the former Cree Lighting product lines, and successfully deployed Microsoft Dynamics Business Central. The ERP deployment established a platform to support shared services, continued growth, and future acquisitions. The integrated program also gave Phoenix clearer ownership, defined decision-making processes, and transition plans spanning the organizational and operational changes.
These capabilities extend beyond the immediate milestones. Future initiatives can draw on an established governance framework, clearer accountability, and a proven approach to coordinating change across the business.
“The CFGI team brought the structure, discipline, and hands-on leadership needed to manage multiple complex workstreams simultaneously while maintaining momentum across the organization.”
Rick Rosser · CEO, Phoenix LightingMaking complex growth executable
Growth companies frequently need to acquire businesses, expand products, modernize systems, and redesign operations on overlapping timelines. The execution challenge sits at the intersection of those initiatives: shared leaders, competing resource demands, and decisions with consequences across the business.
Phoenix’s experience demonstrates the value of connecting those priorities through a PMO with both enterprise visibility and delivery experience. Integrated planning exposes dependencies. Clear accountability moves work forward. Readiness activities connect milestones to operational requirements. Executive governance brings unresolved trade-offs to the people empowered to decide.
CFGI’s PMO Services team brings these capabilities to acquisitions, integrations, carve-outs, ERP transformations, IPO readiness, and operating-model changes, working alongside client leadership and CFGI specialists in Transaction Advisory and Finance Effectiveness to connect technical work with the decisions and execution required to deliver business outcomes.
When major growth initiatives converge, make them executable.
CFGI helps leadership turn competing demands into a coordinated, executable program. Connect with our PMO Services team to discuss your next transformation.