It rather goes without saying that, whatever your business does, it needs to do it well. A restaurant needs to provide nice food. A taxi company needs to get people from A to B without fuss. A phone network needs to a service that won't fail, whenever the customer needs to make a call. And so on, and so forth. Companies that carry out their core activities efficiently and to a high standard should expect to be rewarded for their efforts with greater success.

However, those rewards can only come if there's an awareness of the achievements; doing the best work isn't enough, the best work has to be seen to be done as well. Whoever needs to be impressed - customers, clients, stakeholders, managers, potential investors, official inspectors - it's essential to have the best tools for presenting the work, and the skill to use those tools to the full. The former comes from Microsoft Office, and the latter from high-class professional training; combine the two, and you can be confident of visible - and recognised - success.

So, just how can Office help the way the world sees your work? Well, that depends on the medium it will be seen through. If stylish and striking physical and online publications - such as brochures or pamphlets or posters - are important to your company, Microsoft Publisher has all the tools you need to make an impact. For more complicated, detailed documents, Word has the versatility to show your work just how you need it to be seen, with a layout and style that's tailored to your content.

Alternatively, if you need to stand up in front of an audience and talk about your work - perhaps to explain your department's progress to stakeholders, or to convince a potential client to invest in your business - then PowerPoint gives you the means to make a perfect and highly professional presentation. However you need your company to be seen, Microsoft Office has the tools for the job.

These tools can be used straight out of the box, simple solutions for a wide range of situations that can be used quickly and easily and give you a presentation or document that's ready to use when you need it. However, to have them to hand and only use them to a minimal extent is wasting a real opportunity for your business - and this is where the training comes in. If you can obtain professional quality training for yourself and/or your staff, then you can make full use of everything the software provides, and instead of straightforward, one-size-fits-all solutions, you can create IT solutions that are tailored to benefit your business's specific, unique circumstances.

The question is, then, how do you find the training you need? If you google 'IT training' or 'Microsoft training', then answers will come by their tens and hundreds. Anyone with a computer and the relevant software can set themselves up as an Office training provider; you need to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff, to be confident that the training company you choose to work with will be one that brings the best advantages to your company.

An essential first step is finding a training provider whose Microsoft trainers are Microsoft qualified: this may seem obvious, but you might be surprised at just how many trainers are simply passing on their own experience and their own way of using the software. It's only with fully qualified trainers that you can be sure the methods you're being taught are both the right ones, and those that give you the most control (and if you can find a training provider that offers post-course support from these trainers, to help you with any questions once you come to use your new skills in a live work environment, then all the better).

Having this expertise on hand during the course - and, ideally, after - is vital. But there are other benefits you can look out for, such as small class sizes where individuals can more easily get the help they personally need, or providers that guarantee never to cancel their courses (and in doing so, ensure that the training is there when it suits you, not when it suits them).

The quality of the training itself remains critical. The future progress of your business needs you and your staff to be able to get the greatest advantage from using Microsoft Office software, so you should be certain that the training is of the very highest standard.

After all, if your boiler gives up, you expect a plumber to fix it, not a chef or an accountant; if you're learning to drive, you'd hope to be taught by a professional driving instructor, not a footballer or interior decorator. So there's no reason to take on Microsoft Office training from anyone other than a Microsoft qualified trainer - and with that training, you can be confident of developing skills that can transform the outlook for your organisation.