First things first, is your laptop connected to the same network (i.e. connected via a network cable at work) or are you suggesting that you wish to connect from home for instance. If it is the case that you wish to access your exchange account from home, I would suspect that you would require a VPN (Virtual Private Network) account in order to connect to the relevant network first. With the VPN in place, it should be possible to then configure your email client to connect to the Exchange server.
Unfortunately, if you're not able to acquire a VPN account through your place of work then I'd suspect your next best bet is simply Outlook Web Access.
Hope that helps and that I've not missed the point ;-)