Data modeling is, from my point of view, one of the key components of every data project. From my early start as a consultant in Los Angeles and New York City, modeling was paramount to any project. I would spend 60% of my time analyzing requirements and designing the model. I learned from the beginning that a good data model saves time and headaches in the future.
A good model applies to any tool. From the old OLAP cubes to the newer tools, such as Qlik Sense, if you know modeling, you will be talking the same language like many others worldwide.
Back in the days when I was working as a business intelligence consultant in Italy, we had to migrate a project from OBIEE to QlikView (version 10 back then). Everything changed but the model. The source tables remained the same, the business rules, the logic within the ETL - all the same. The rest, of course...