A method, computer program product, and apparatus for efficiently utilizing software licenses in a large organization having multiple divisions is disclosed. A preferred embodiment of the present invention accomplishes this goal by providing for a pool of organization-wide software licenses. This license pool is subdivided into a number of reserved or dedicated licenses for each particular division and a set of shared licenses to be shared among the various divisions. A given division, when checking out licenses from the organization-wide pool, will first exhaust its reserved licenses before checking out shared licenses. In the event that all shared licenses are being used, but there are reserved licenses that are sitting idle, a division may borrow a reserved license from another division, subject to the lending division's right of preemption in the event that the borrowed license is needed by the division lending the license.