This paper explores how managers in the manufacturing industry simultaneously accommodated industrial digitalization and the impact of COVID-19. Managers’ views and understanding of industrial digitalization during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic are narrated through the circumstances that came to their proxy during the spring of 2020. The study result is based on qualitative in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with eight small- and medium-sized manufacturing managers. This study contributes by giving empirically informed implications on manufacturing managers’ perception of industrial digitalization during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings show that industrial digitalization due to the COVID-19 pandemic is viewed differently from previous digitalization processes, causing new ways for managers to perceive how and why digital technologies may be implemented. © 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.