The correct answer is Conducting a Business Impact Analysis to identify mission critical processes and estimate the effects of outages.

A Business Impact Analysis is the essential first step because it identifies which processes and systems are mission critical and it estimates the operational and financial effects of outages. The analysis produces recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives and it documents dependencies across people, applications, and suppliers so planners can prioritize resources and select appropriate recovery strategies.

Completing a Business Impact Analysis first ensures that subsequent actions such as communication plans, incident teams, and technical controls align with the highest business priorities and available budget. Without the BIA there is a high risk of investing in low impact areas while leaving critical capabilities insufficiently protected.

Building a detailed stakeholder communication protocol for employees customers and external partners is important for effective response but it is not the singular first activity. Communication plans must be built around priorities and escalation triggers that come from the BIA and the overall continuity strategy.

Creating a permanent incident command team to lead response coordination and decision making is a valuable governance practice but forming that team before conducting a BIA can lead to unclear priorities and misaligned responsibilities. The BIA informs who must be involved and what decisions will be most critical during recovery.

Implementing regular backups to Cloud Storage and scheduling Compute Engine snapshots for key systems are necessary technical controls but they are tactical steps rather than the first planning activity. Backup scope and frequency should be driven by criticality and acceptable data loss which are defined by the BIA, and they must fit into a broader recovery plan and budget.

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