Busy Season brings with it tremendous opportunities to generate improvements for your firm, your clients, staff and associates. It is called Busy Season for good reason: the issue is, are you busy with the right things both strategically and procedurally? Here are suggestions on some areas of strategic focus that will yield improvements that all will welcome:

XCM Solutions, which makes online workflow management software, has hired Sue Nolan as chief marketing officer, a new position for the Quincy, Mass.-based company. Nolan's career included eight years with CCH where she was VP of cross market solutions from March 2009 through May 2013.

Teresa Mackintosh, who had an almost 20-year career in the tax and accounting software business, has become CEO of Trintech. Based in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, area, Trintech markets cloud-based applications that manage the record-to-report process.

Liberty Tax has named Laura Contreras Rowe as COO of its SiempreTax+ business, which is designed to provide tax preparation and other services to the Hispanic market. While Liberty, which operates a franchised store chain for tax preparation, announced her hiring in the last week, Contreras Rowe has been on the job since August.