Many corporate environments reject attachments like Word documents for the very reason you describe. Multi-level defense is of course what is needed; from AV, to spam filtering mail with attachments, to disabling macros by default in Word; all the layers work together to provide a good defense. Not to mention common-sense in only opening attachments you are expecting and trust.
The size and style of business environment you have will dictate the way you defend your organization. If you don't commonly share Word documents externally, maybe consider a spam filter to strip them out before they even reach the mailbox. If you do expect incoming documents, have a whilelist of addresses you consider safe senders and junk the rest.
Big 24/7 companies pay BIG BUCKS for enterprise solutions because they can do things like hourly fast-tracked signature updates and other technologies.