It's difficult to remember a time when the workplace was not dominated by the desktop computer. With 90% of the world's computers now installed with Microsoft Office many employers require at least a basic familiarity with this suite of software packages, so whether you are using Word, Excel or PowerPoint for the first time or thinking about enhancing your current skills in Access or Outlook, exploring Microsoft Office as much as possible adds immense value to your career prospects.

The Microsoft Office collection of software packages presents the user with a daunting array of tools which can bewilder the beginner but still surprise the advanced user with a new shortcut or easier way of doing things. Whatever your ability, a taught course can vastly improve your awareness of these tools and equip you with marketable skills that will make you a valuable asset in the workplace and give you a competitive advantage in the job market. For example, learning how to reformat a PowerPoint presentation according to a company style not only asserts the company brand but makes an immediate aesthetic impact on a client; often the icing on the cake to sealing an important deal. Similarly, typing your first CV in Word and knowing how to apply one of the built-in templates will make your work look consistently professional, illustrate your technical skills and thereby impress a potential employer, adding to your chances of an interview. Microsoft Office is an extensive toolkit allowing you to create bespoke solutions to almost any project you can think of. You simply have to know where the tools are kept and how to use them.

Email is now an essential communication tool throughout the world and the Microsoft Office email client - Outlook - is widely used. Even if you have only vaguely heard of email and never sent one, or you are able to set rules in Outlook to filter messages into different folders, Microsoft Office is always evolving and there is always something new to learn. Whether building corporate presentations in PowerPoint, running queries in Access, designing scenarios in Excel or learning how to use tabs in Word, a greater familiarity with these packages increases your productivity, enables you to manage your workload more effectively and makes you a more valuable asset to your employer. At the same time your organisational skills will improve by the calendar facilities and task priority flags in Outlook while knowing how to forward your work emails and access them from home will allow you to respond more swiftly to developing situations than others. Simply put, the reliance on Microsoft Office these days is such that the more you know the more valuable an employee you are.

So whether you are exploring Microsoft Office for the first time, trying to devise a solution to a specific problem or simply wanting to get the most you can out of these individual software packages, a taught course in any of these packages at a level to suit you is an excellent investment in your career. Microsoft Office has transformed the workplace and it can transform your career as well.