I would add the a contract group, like contract administrator, as the approval group on the Contract request. This way all the contract administrators will get notified of the request and only one needs to approve and then that same administrator could also create the contract workspace immediately upon approval of the contract request.
The other option would be to use a team member rule file to automatically set the correct contract administrator as the approver based on header fields on the contract request, for example, business unit, region etc. Once the contract request is created the correct admin will be assigned to approve the contract request and they can then crate the contract workspace after they have approved the contract request.
Leslie Martensen
Sr. Product Manager Ariba Contract Management